


Defining You, Defining Me

by estelraca



Category: Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger, 烈車戦隊トッキュウジャー | Ressha Sentai ToQger
Genre: Crossover, Gen, Imprisonment, Psychological Torture, Team as Family, tokusatsu big bang 2015
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-28
Updated: 2015-06-28
Packaged: 2018-04-06 13:38:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 29,195
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4223742
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/estelraca/pseuds/estelraca
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Marvelous and Right are kidnapped by monsters intent on using the Greatest Treasure in the Universe for their own ends, the rest of the Gokaigers and ToQgers have to work together to get them back.  Written for the Tokusatsu Big Bang.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Red

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for the Tokusatsu Big Bang. Please go check out the awesome artwork for the story by solarbaby614 on the Dreamwidth site at http://tokubigbang.dreamwidth.org/, as well as all the other awesome works for the exchange!

_Chapter One: Red_

The room is beautiful.

Decorations arch from the ceiling down toward the floor, in what seems to be a hundred different colors—streamers inviting them to grab them, bits of metal and glass that send shimmering rainbows into the corners of the room, pieces of candy for them to grab at. It's a wonderful, perfect vision, everything a six-year-old child could want, and he stares in from the doorway.

(Something isn't right. There is something wrong about the way the room looks—too square, the corners too sharply angled. There is something about the decorations—they are not right, would not be situated so that they rely on gravity so much. Something is _wrong_ , though an aching part of him wants desperately for it to be right.)

"Come on!" A woman is behind him, shepherding him forward, deeper into the room. "In you go!"

He steps forward, because if he doesn't he suspects he will be bodily lifted, but he doesn't charge at any of the treats. Instead he turns and fixes the woman with his eyes, waiting for her to explain.

She smiles, and she looks familiar to him—looks like him, he thinks, though not like the face that currently peers at him from any reflective surface. Not a child-him, but an adult-him, and his head _hurts_ as he tries to remember where the image of adult-him comes from.

"There there." The woman's hand runs down his face, her touch gentle, soothing, and the pain goes away along with the question that generated it. "You just focus on the here and now. Isn't this an amazing birthday party, son?"

(Wrong, that is not the word she would use—not the word any of them would use. He would be _child_ , he would be _sibling_ , he would be _crew_ , one day, but not son. Not gendered, not segregated, not until his world burns and it _hurts_ , so much, his head hurts _so much—_ )

"Focus." Her hands have clamped down on either side of his head, and her voice is a command, drawing his attention forward. "We're going to have a lovely evening today. We're going to let you play here, before your age-mates come—"

(Siblings, she should have called them siblings, but he doesn't let her see the pain, instead continuing to stare straight ahead. Nor does he let on that she should never consider letting him take what should be divided evenly among the siblings, all the children of a similar age on the ship being treated as one unit, taught to share as all space-farers must share. These wrong bits are his, and he will hold them close, until he knows what the game is.)

"Don't worry, your _siblings_ will have all that they need, as well." She smiles, but it is a cold, artificial smile, just as her eyes are cold, holding no reflection of emotion. "All you have to do is listen to me, and then you can go have fun."

As if he needed _permission_ to have fun, as if she somehow holds the key to his having fun, and he can feel his breathing grow rapid and shallow as pain again spikes through his head.

"You can have anything you want." Her fingers massage his cheeks, her tone wheedling, caressing. "You can have your world and your people. All you need to do is give me one thing. Just one little thing. You were playing with some of your friends, and you found something. Give it to your mama—"

(Not the right word, a medical word, not the one that is used from a parent to a child, not the one that is used from crew to the crew's children, and his head is going to split in two if he keeps collecting wrong bits but he refuses to let them go.)

"Help me. Help your... _crew_." This time there is emotion in her voice as she says the word, but it is not a comforting emotion. It is hunger, desire, _need_ , and it is all focused on him. Pulling thoughts from his head, shaping the world around him, and the edges of the room are no longer quite so sharp. The decorations hanging down are no longer quite so incongruous, look almost like what he remembers from when he was five, from the last party he celebrated with his people before—

"Just a little thing." Her eyes burn into his, her hands suddenly a vice on his face. "Just tell us where the toy you found with your friends is."

"I—" He tries to shake his head, but he is small and she is large, and he can't move at all in her grip. "I don't know what you mean."

"You do. You were having a lot of fun with it." Her words are once again a gentle caress, but her hands don't loosen their hold. "I'm going to tell you what you were calling it, and all you have to tell me is where you found it and where you left it. That's it. Just tell me those things, and you can go have your party. Your siblings will join you. I'll stay with you. Everything will be exactly as you want it."

(It won't be. He is missing something—no, more than something. He is missing _himself_ , pieces of the puzzle that make up _who he is_ , and—)

"Tell me where it is and I'll help you make-believe anything you want." Her forehead is leaning against his, the contact driving away the pain that was threatening to sweep him under. It puts her eyes too close, and he think he can see straight through them to empty blackness. "Tell me where the Greatest Treasure in the Universe is."

(No. He is not going to ever tell anyone— _must not_ ever tell anyone—)

" _Tell me_." The command is the rasping of sandpaper over all his thoughts, disruptive, impossible to ignore. "Tell me, and then you can go free, Marvelous, you can—"

He pulls himself from the waking dream—nightmare—with a howl of rage and hurt. How _dare_ they—how _dare_ they use one of the few memories he has left of his people, of the culture that should have been his. How _dare_ they try to erase all that he has done and become, to make him a child, easily led, easily manipulated.

How dare they be so _stupid_ , not having picked up on the fact that the name Marvelous is self-chosen—is his _self_ , his core, his identity, tied intricately into all that he has done and all that he has become.

He will make them pay for their stupidity.

He kicks one guard into the wall. They are expecting a human—have restrained him as though he were a human, clearly not understanding that his people are faster, stronger, more agile than any human. The restraint around his right wrist breaks easily, and he yanks the IV from his left arm as he tenses his muscles to rip that arm free, as well.

" _Stop him—idiots—hold him—_ "

Three different people are barking orders into the room, and the device around his head is sending electrical shocks of pain up and down his body. He will not be restrained, though. He will not be held captive here while his crew is—

He still hasn't freed his left arm from its restraint, though his feet are on the ground and only a small portion of the memory-reading device is still hanging around his right ear when the electric prod catches him high on his back.

He arches, blood pulsing more heavily from where he's ripped cords off of and out of his body as all his muscles contract uncontrollably. He doesn't scream, this time. He tries to move, to spin to face his attacker, even as his left wrist protests, tiny bones grinding in ways they are not meant to as he continues to pull against the unyielding straps.

Then he catches sight of who is holding the electric prod, and he hesitates.

"Come on, Marv-chan." Basco grins at him, hat tilted jauntily. "You didn't think you could escape from us that easily, did you?"

The man with the prod moves forward then, and as soon as he does Marvelous knows it has been another waking hallucination. The man's moves are not Basco's easy grace. He is scared, jittery, staying back from Marvelous where Basco would have lunged forward.

Even as the optical illusion shreds away, though, the prod finds its mark, twisting his body out of his control again.

" _Hit him again._ " Just one disembodied voice this time, one of the unseen people who has created this prison for him. " _Keep hitting him until he can't get up. A little blood loss and some contusions will hopefully make him more amenable to our proceedings._ "

He will _never_ be amenable to them. He doesn't even know who they _are_ , but he hates them with the same deep passion he had for the Zangyack—a passion he has, perhaps, learned from Joe.

Those who would toy with the minds of others for their own gain deserve nothing but disdain and as swift a death as he can arrange.

Which isn't going to be so swift right now.

He stops fighting after the fifth shock. There's no point in it anymore—he isn't going to get away, and the more injured he ends up the less capable he'll be of making escape attempts in the future.

They don't stop hitting him with the shock sticks until his vision goes grey, his muscles limp except when they respond to the current being forced through them.

There will be another chance, though.

So long as he's alive—so long as he knows his crew is out there, somewhere, separated from him—he will make certain that there's another chance.

XXX

" _Throw him in with the other one._ "

Marvelous recognizes the voice as one of the ones that gave commands during his... what? Interrogation? Brain-washing? Torture session? All three are accurate enough, he supposes. This voice is the one that spoke last, the one that wrested control when chaos threatened to take over. He decides he will think of this man as Headman, until he finds a better moniker for him—Headless Man is currently appealing, but will have to wait.

" _Perhaps seeing what happens to those who are violent will discourage him from attempting anything of his own._ " The voice sounds self-satisfied, and Marvelous would open his eyes, try to get a look at the owner, but there's a slight static under the words and a consistency to the volume that tells him the man is using a comm system again.

Staying away from him—afraid of him, perhaps? Marvelous hopes so. If he isn't right now, Marvelous will make sure he is in the future.

The sound of the cell door opening makes him briefly consider trying to get to his feet, but a quick bodily inventory tells him that all he's likely to get from the attempt is more pain, so he stays still.

There is the sound of scrabbling, the zap of one of those damn electric prods again, a whimper that sounds too high-pitched to come from an adult, and the cell door bangs closed again.

He should really force himself up at this point. He should make sure that whoever's been thrown in here with him is friendly—or at least conducive to being an ally. Plus, if they're as young or small as that whimper implied, he should make sure they're not panicking or injured or—

"Mister? Hey, mister, are you still alive?"

Marvelous manages to crack one eye open as a small finger pokes tentatively at his chest.

A boy—human, from the looks of him, though that doesn't mean he can't be like Joe or Luka or Ahim or Marvelous himself and look human but actually not be—peers back down at him, expression earnest. He can't be more than ten or eleven, and there is blood staining his chin and his shirt, clear evidence that he struggled before or after being captured. Reaching up with a bloody hand of his own—a hand that shakes more than he likes, until he frowns at it for a few seconds—Marvelous smears at the blood, trying to ensure there's nothing more serious beneath it. "Hi, kid."

"Hi." The boy stays still, looking down at Marvelous with wide, serious eyes. "My name's Right. Don't worry. My friends are going to come for me, and I'll make sure that we get you out of here, too."

Marvelous can't help but laugh in surprised pleasure at the simple, easy way the boy makes the proclamations. "I'd tell you we have to both decide to live and count on courage, but it seems you've already got courage enough. Well said, boy."

The boy gives a tentative smile. "I... tend to be pretty brave. Or stupid, depending on who you ask. But brave sounds better. Even the Kyoryugers said we were brave."

"Kyoryugers..." Marvelous finds that his eyes have closed without his permission, and he forces them open again. "Gai talked about something... right. The dinosaur dancers. One of our successors."

Right blinks, clearly surprised. "How do you—oh. _Oh!_ You're _him_! You're Captain Marvelous, leader of the Gokaigers!"

Marvelous can feel his lips pull back in a smile that is half-feral, the recognition and the clear respect with which Right speaks soothing some of the invisible injuries he has been trying to salve with memories of his own. (Memories that will become increasingly untrustworthy, he fears, as they are plundered for Headman to use, but they are all he has—all he is—and he will cherish them for as long as he is certain they are _his_.) "I am."

"What have they..." The boy's face twists, and Marvelous realizes too late that recognition—though good for him—will only make their captivity harder for the boy to handle.

Forcing trembling muscles to support him, he levers himself into a sitting position. It means he can look down into the boy's eyes, and he does, smiling a little less ferally. Reaching out with his right hand, he ruffles Right's hair. "The rest of the Gokaigers are out there, and they'll be coming for me. So don't worry. All we have to do is survive, and we'll be back with our friends before we know it."

He is certain that his crew is out there. He remembers nothing of being captured—just a blur of darkness in his memory—but if his crew were dead, he is certain Headman would be using that against him. And if they're not dead and they're not here, they will be coming for him.

Not that he'll wait for them—he will look for his own escape, do everything he can to get back to them—but knowing that heroes are looking for them should help buoy the boy's spirits.

Blood drips down Marvelous' arm, drips from his wrist onto Right's upturned face, and in a shimmer of darkness the boy is replaced by a young man.

The young man smiles across at Marvelous, grabs his shoulders and keeps him from falling as Marvelous pulls back in surprise and suspicion.

The man's voice is surprisingly gentle as he helps Marvelous into a sitting position against the wall. "We'll survive. We'll get out of this and go home. The Gokaigers and ToQgers will both be whole again."

He'll need to ask more questions. He'll need to figure out what's happening, why the boy became a young man and if the ToQgers are the half-imaginary train people that Gai has been babbling about for the past few months.

He'll have to be careful, to make sure that he isn't being caught in another trap, tricked into revealing things that he shouldn't ever reveal.

But right now there is no new pain in his head, no sense that something in the world is out of place, so he allows the young man to help him into a better sitting position against the wall. "We'll get back to our friends, and everything will be just fine."

XXX

Right looks down at his hand—his adult-size hand, something he hadn't expected to see again for years and years.

Then he looks over at the pirate captain currently slumped against the wall. Marvelous' chest rises and falls steadily, his breathing the even pattern of sleep. Bruises cover most of his exposed skin... or at least most of his exposed skin that isn't covered in blood. The amazing red coat that Right has seen him wearing in pictures of other occasions is gone, his white shirt and black vest stained and torn and tattered almost beyond recognition.

But Marvelous hasn't given up. He is injured and hurting, but he hasn't given up, reiterated time and again that Right and he will be free, that the rest of the Gokaigers will come for them.

Right had merely nodded, reiterated that his own friends will come for them, as well. Hoping to give the pirate more strength, to help in any way that he can—hoping to stretch his imagination with the repetition of the words, to _see_ , clearly and precisely in his mind's eye, his friends coming to get them.

He doesn't know quite what to picture, though. He doesn't know if he should be picturing them in their adult bodies, to match him now, or if he should still be imagining them in their children's bodies. He doesn't know if the Rainbow Line will have noticed his disappearance—his _abduction_ , at the hands of creatures that look like nothing he has ever seen before, like some nightmare combination of wasp and goat and man.

He doesn't know who will be coming for him, but _someone_ will be, he is certain of that.

But he won't be just a pawn. He won't simply sit here waiting for rescue—won't wait to see if they'll do to him what they have done to Marvelous.

It is the third time he's paced the cell, a slow, careful circuit that would do Mio and Hikari proud. He sweeps his eyes over everything, from the rough stone of the ground to the stained, damp plaster of the ceiling. He finds no exit from the cell other than the locked iron bars; he finds nothing that he can use as a weapon. Even stretching his adult-long arms out through the bars and swiping at the fluorescent light humming viciously in the ceiling does no good, his fingers coming up at least a meter short of ever touching the light.

Settling down by the pirate captain again, Right hugs his knees, the creeping cold of fear once more leeching into his heart.

"Of course it is."

Right jumps to his feet, spinning, feeling his breath catch in his throat and his blood turn to ice-water. He knows that voice. He _knows_ it, will hear it in his dreams until the day he dies, but it can't _possibly_ be—

"Yo, Right." Zett is kneeling on the ground, but he stands as Right stands, mirroring his motions. He wears his human guise, and there is tension showing in the lines around his eyes. His clothing is different than it was the last time Right saw him—still mainly white, but _more_ white than it was before, with purple highlights increased and the black stripped away. "I thought it would be longer before we met again."

"You..." Right finds his right foot moving back, and he forces himself to stop, to stand still. "You can't be here. You're dead."

"You can't kill darkness, Right." Zett circles around Right, never moving closer to him, though his eyes flick to Right's feet, watching for motion. "Drive it back, cripple its power, turn it from something frightful to something calm and useful... those you can do. Did do. But you can't erase the dark and the emotions that grow there... not any more than I could erase the light and all the shining wonders it holds."

"I don't..." Right shakes his head, shoves his hand up into his hair to push it away from his eyes. "I don't _understand_. How are you not dead? Why are you here? Where's _here_?"

"So many questions." Zett's right hand rises, his fingers stretching toward Right before he abruptly balls his hand into a fist, as though grabbing something unseen. "Part of the light, perhaps? The asking of questions. The demanding of answers. But I'll answer what I can."

" _Why?_ " Anger surges up, and Right finds that he likes it more than he likes the fear and confusion, though it is no less a part of the dark. "Are you _part_ of this? Are you helping them?"

" _Never_." Zett's anger smolders, his eyes flashing silver as he sneers out the response. "You're not even on Earth, Right. This darkness isn't mine. But it _is_ darkness, and I can move through any darkness I want. My birth-right, no matter what else I might desire."

"Not on Earth." Right nods to himself, a piece of the picture he needs slotting into place. "All right. I guess that makes sense. The Gokaigers spend most of their time in space, after all. I still don't understand why you're here, though."

"Because _you're_ here." Zett says the words as though they're obvious, as though Right is being slow in not picking up on what he means. "We're still bound together, you and I. You found yourself drenched in darkness, surrounded by fear and anger and hatred and a clinging, festering _desire_ , and your body did what it has been taught to do when drenched in darkness."

Right looks down at his hands, remembering the blood dripping down onto his face from Marvelous' battered body, the swirl of darkness that had licked up as he became this almost-grown version of himself again. "I... grew up again. Because of this place? Because of the people here? Because... this place is like being on the Shadow Line or in a town swallowed by darkness, in some way?"

"Ah." Zett smiles, and there is something new in his smile, now, something Right hasn't seen before. A kind of pride, as though he approves of Right's logic. "Very good, Right. But in order to do that, in order to inoculate you against the darkness, it drew on a different darkness. _My_ darkness. And so here I am, and there you are."

Right shakes his head. "It still doesn't explain what you're doing. What side you're on."

"My own." Zett has turned from Right, is examining the iron bars that form one wall of their prison. His hand ghosts up and down, following but not touching the bars. "I think I will always be on my own side, from now on. I will not be anyone's tool or figurehead emperor. I will be the darkness that loves the shining light... and I do not approve of this place."

Zett's hand darts forward, forming a fist... and passes right through the bars, as though they weren't there, as though _Zett_ weren't there.

As though one weren't real.

"Pity." Zett growls out the word, and again his eyes flash silver. "But not unexpected. This place is built of a different kind of darkness, and I'm still recovering from our last... encounter."

"Wait..." Right approaches Zett carefully, still remembering far too well their last few battles, the pain of Zett's fists and blade connecting with his body. "Are you saying you're here to _help_ me?"

"You're bound to me, as I said. My shining light, to soften the darkness." Zett pulls his fist back into the cell, his eyes dropping to the floor. "And Grita wants me to do this. To see if there's some way we can help you."

" _Grita_?" A smile breaks across Right's face—a smile that causes the split lip he acquired during his abduction to sting, but he doesn't care. "Grita's _alive_?"

"Grita is the reason I'm still alive... still me, rather than a blank king of darkness ready to be shaped by those around him again." Zett's eyes rise, fixing Right with a fierce glare. "I still can't stand how the world is. How you have what I want—what I can never have. But I'm... growing to accept those things I cannot change. And I'll never let some _alien_ claim what is rightfully mine."

"Then—"

Zett is already striding back into the depths of the cell, to a corner where shadows roll and roil. The sound of a train whistle blares in the distance, twisted and distorted. Right tries to follow Zett into the shadows, but it feels as though he presses against a glass wall, the darkness pushing him back. Zett has no problem striding forward, striding into the seething emptiness, his left hand lifted in a salute. "Keep yourself alive, Right. I'll be very upset if you die at someone else's hands."

And with that the Emperor of Darkness is gone, the roiling shadows just that, shadows, and Right is once more alone with the sleeping pirate.

When he settles down next to Marvelous again, the images come more easily to him.

His friends will come, in adult bodies like his; they will bring their trains, and their imaginations, and their determination; and they will once more dissipate the darkness with the light of a thousand rainbows.

He can _see_ it, and that means it's only a matter of time before it happens.


	2. Yellow

_Chapter Two: Yellow_

Right has been gone for four hours when her father sends out the official missing child notification.

Mio finds herself locked in his office at the police station, forbidden to go anywhere or do anything other than use her phone to stay in contact with her friends.

It's _infuriating_. It's enough to bring tears to her eyes, though she understands why he does it. She is just a child, still—in some ways, for him, has never been anything _but_ a child. Though their families were _there_ , though their parents and siblings picked them up at the station and saw them as adults and used their love and imagination to will them back the childhood they had all agreed to sacrifice, Mio sometimes suspects they don't believe any of it.

Sometimes she doesn't _want_ her dad to believe any of it. Sometimes she doesn't want him to ever read the letter she has seen tucked carefully away in the photo album, watch his eyes as he remembers that she has been a soldier and she has fought in a war and she has made the decision to sacrifice herself and her life with her family if that is what the world needs. Sometimes she doesn't want there to be that sad, haunted look in his eyes or that tremble to his touch when she says or does something that the girl who once lived in this child's body—the girl who never fought a war, who never stared death in the face—wouldn't.

Sometimes she wants to be like any other child. She wants to cry because the girl at the front of the bus made fun of her hair, or she fell and scraped her knee, or the kitty on the corner scratched her hand instead of letting her pet it. She wants to throw herself into her father's arms and let him comfort her, tell her everything will be all right, tell her the world is fair and just and safe.

Even the girl that she was knew better than that, though. The girl she was before she was a ToQger still knew pain and grief and fear—made meals for her father, and waited for him at night, and through her father's work had some inkling of how dark the world could be.

Knew that children who disappeared, if they weren't found within a day or two, were often never found.

Perhaps, if she had never been a ToQger, she would have been content to stay in his office, where he put her, and listen to his promise that he would find Right. Perhaps she would have distracted herself from her fear by drawing, by texting with Kagura, by imagining all the places that Right could be that would make his disappearance funny rather than scary.

Perhaps, but Mio thinks not, and she is only somewhat sorry as she puts the finishing touches on her note to her father.

Right is missing, and whenever Right is missing, it's the job of the ToQgers to find him.

Especially since she thinks—fears, though she has only one misshappen footprint and one long gold-black feather to attest to her theory—that there may be something more sinister involved in Right's disappearance.

The feather feels like a lead weight in her back-pack. She found it just outside the school, less than a minute after Right had disappeared. She picked it up because it was beautiful, a shimmering gold at the tips that faded into a night-rich black by the shaft. She has never seen anything like it, can only imagine what kind of bird it must have come from.

It wasn't until they got to their clubhouse and found that Right hadn't run ahead that she began to worry if perhaps the feather was something else.

 _What_ else, she can't say for certain. But if there is the possibility that something like the Shadow Line has taken an interest in them...

She leaves the note on her father's desk, where he is certain to find it quickly.

Walking out of the police station is easy. She is known to most of the officers and secretaries. Only one tries to stop her, and she tells him that she is simply going to the vending machine in the lobby to buy a snack. Between that and her smile, he lets her continue on.

She is a good girl, after all. She doesn't ever do anything to make her father worry. He reassures her of that with a pat on the head.

Mio keeps her head down, not talking to anyone after that, slipping out the front door of the station while a drunk man distracts everyone's attention.

She and the others will find Right, and they will come home, and they will once more reclaim their childhood.

But for now—

She doesn't see where the bag comes from. It is just suddenly _there_ , covering her head, blocking out the light.

She raises both hands, trying to get something else between the cord of the bag and her skin, as her father has taught her to do when something is going around her throat. She also screams, as loud and as long as she can, because she is still in a child's body, and surely if someone sees a child being abducted like this—

Nimble, strong arms drag hers down, tie her hands quickly behind her back. Not painfully—the rope is tight enough to hold her, but not so tight that it cuts into her skin. The bag is placed more securely as a hand clamps over her mouth, and a woman's voice whispers in her ear. "No screaming now—none of that. Not until we're on the ship, at least."

The idea of going on a ship is not comforting, and Mio redoubles her efforts to escape. She kicks back, earning a very un-lady-like curse from her captor; she tries to bite down on the hand restricting her mouth, but mostly she just ends up chewing on the bag. It doesn't have a very good flavor—oily, though with an aftertaste that is like nothing she's ever experienced before—and she spits it out immediately, trying not to gag.

"Doesn't taste very good, does it?" The woman's voice is triumphant, and Mio squeaks as she is hoisted up and, she assumes, tossed over the woman's shoulder. "Won't hurt you, though. It'll keep you dry if it rains, helps keep atmosphere in if you get spaced, and at the moment is muffling that screaming of yours. You have got a hell of a set of lungs on you, girl. Scream or not, though, you're coming with me, and the less you fight, the fewer bruises we'll both have. Got it?"

Mio's response is another scream and a thrashing of her body, trying to kick herself off her captor's shoulder.

It doesn't work, unfortunately, and with another string of curses that Mio can only half-comprehend—what is a _fire-dryad_ , and can they actually _do_ that?—she finds herself spirited away.

XXX

"Stop _fighting—_ gods, can you Earthlings ever just let things be _simple_?" Luka scrambles to readjust her hold on her flailing captive.

It had taken her longer than it should have to find and grab the girl. Part of it was where the girl had been held—inside a police station, with guards all about that Luka didn't want to get involved if she didn't have to—and part of it had been the girl herself. From disappearing from the room she'd initially been staying in to fighting tooth and nail every step of the way from the small park by the precinct where Luka caught up with her to the _Galleon_ , the girl has proven to be very good at making a nuisance of herself.

A muffled cry that might contain the word _Earthlings_ is the girl's answer, but Luka ignores it for the moment. Now that she's on the _Galleon_ , she should be able to take the hood off and they can have a proper conversation, where Luka won't have to worry about the girl's yells attracting any undue attention.

"—and so you see, though I understand why you're angry, we didn't— _Luka_."

The exasperation in Ahim's voice is obvious, and Luka tries not to flinch back as she swings into the room, struggling Earthling on her back. "I found mine. Oh, good, looks like the rest of you found yours, too."

Three other children—two male, one female, if Luka's reading their clothing right—are sitting on the couch. The boy in the green jacket and the girl in the pink cloak both look comfortable; the boy in the blue vest is distinctly dishevelled, his hair sticking up and his glasses askew. All three children jump to their feet when they see Luka... or, more accurately, the kicking legs of Luka's burden.

"Luka." Ahim's eyes are narrowed in what is definitely anger. " _What_ did you do?"

"What Navi told us we needed to do. I found the girl that'll help lead us to the ToQgers." Setting the girl down on her feet, holding her by her bound hands so she doesn't immediately rush away, Luka pulls off the hood. "I take it you all know each other?"

"Mio!" The girl in the pink cloak throws herself onto Luka's captive. "Are you hurt? Oh, let me undo these—"

Luka looks from the two children to Ahim, and decides from the glare that she gets that letting the children untie Mio's bonds is probably a good idea.

Retreating back to stand by Joe, Luka watches the children bundle Mio up onto the couch with them, the four taking up clearly defensive positions.

"I also made the mistake of not asking my target if he wanted to come with me." Joe speaks quietly, from the corner of his mouth. "I thought Ahim was going to skewer me and have Doc cook me for dinner."

Ahim glances over at the two of them, and Luka decides she'll save commisserating with Joe for later.

"Now then. You're all here." Ahim stands in front of the children, her hands folded together before her chest. She speaks to them as though they were equals, and Luka can see the children relaxing. "I'm sorry for the rather rough way some of you were brought here. Our crew's been under... strain lately, and apparently it wasn't clear enough that you're to be our allies, not our hostages."

"Ahim, that's not fair." Luka crosses her own arms in front of her chest, trying not to pout. " _You_ try taking a kid out from under the noses of the cops without anyone being the wiser."

Ahim closes her eyes, drawing a deep breath. "Kagura, how did I convince you to come with me?"

The girl in the pink cloak, who is now sitting with one arm around Mio, looks down. "You told me you needed my help, and when I said we had someone we were looking for you said that you could maybe help us, too."

Ahim smiles at the girl. "And we do intend to help you, if we can. But _that_ , Luka, is the secret to diplomacy."

Joe lowers his head and his voice, so that Luka's fairly certain she's the only one who can hear. "Our way also resulted in the children getting onto the ship."

Pressing her lips together so that she won't laugh—a sound that she suspects would be half-cry, anyway, the stresses of the last few days catching up to her—Luka gives Ahim a little bow and gestures for her to continue.

Turning back to the kids, Ahim begins pacing in front of them. "I'm not sure if you'll recognize us or not, but we're the Gokaigers. We're a group of space pirates who—"

The boy in the blue vest makes a noise that is somewhere between a squeak and a screech, both hands rising to cover his mouth.

Mio pats him on the shoulder. "I think what Tokatti is trying to say is that the Gokaigers are the thirty-fifth super sentai group... which would make you guys our predecessors."

Joe takes a step forward, his lithe body tensing as his hand drops to his sword. "Predecessors?"

Luka's fear that the children won't recognize the growl to Joe's voice as protective rather than angry fades away as Tokatti gives another squeak, raising a hand to point at Joe. "He's _Joe Gibken_! I was kidnapped by Joe Gibken!"

The boy in the green jacket leans forward. "We're the ToQgers. We're the thirty-eighth super sentai team."

"But..." Ahim turns her attention from the children to first Doc and then Luka and Joe. Luka shrugs. "But you're just children."

"We _are_ children." Mio, clearly already recovered from any trauma she experienced in transit, stares up at Ahim with hard eyes. Eyes that Luka recognizes, from mirrors in her own past—this girl has seen fighting, has seen hardship. "And we're also the ToQgers."

"Then..." Doc points a finger at each of the ToQgers in turn, lips moving as he silently counts. "The one who's missing, your friend Right..."

Mio and the boy in green share a look before the boy answers. "Is ToQ One. Our leader. You didn't...?"

"No." Striding forward so that he stands by Ahim, Joe faces the children. "We haven't interacted with anyone on Earth aside from you four so far. But if your leader has disappeared..."

Doc moves to stand at Joe's other side, and Luka moves to stand by Ahim, the four of them facing their child-counterparts. It's Doc who continues the story, saying the words that still stick in Luka's throat. "Our captain, Marvelous... he's been missing for five days now. We were on Cania Epsilon—"

"It's a planet two systems over from Earth." Ahim adds the explanation at their blank expressions.

"And he disappeared." Joe's voice is a low, gruff growl, and Luka reaches out to lay a hand on his arm, feeling the tension in all his muscles. "He was right there with us in the market, and then he was gone. All we could find was his Gokai Changer, which we know he would never leave behind willingly, but no sign of him."

Ahim picks up the thread of the story again. "Navi has an ability to give prophecies, sometimes. Not always obvious ones, but when we couldn't find any trace of what might have happened planet-side..."

Luka runs her eyes down the row of children, taking in how intent they are, how confident and calm. Yes, she can believe that these children have seen war before. "This time the first clue was fairly obvious. We had to find four children—and it could only have been the four of you—and they would lead us to the ToQgers, who would lead us to Marvelous."

The four children share a long glance, the kind of meaning-loaded exchange of minute body language—a shrug here, a quirked eyebrow there, a shuffle of feet here, a brush of a hand against an arm or leg—that only a close-knit group can share.

That only a _crew_ can share, and it _hurts_ , gods, it still hurts _so much_ , not knowing where Marvelous is, what might have happened to him, having that gaping hole in their crew—

"We don't know anything." Mio sounds honestly regretful, her eyes meeting each of the Gokaigers' in turn. "But we'll be happy to help you, especially if you think it might have anything to do with Right disappearing."

Joe shrugs. "Two sentai leaders disappearing in the span of a few days..."

"We'll find them." Tokatti surges to his feet, drawing his team-mates up with him, so that the children are standing in a too-short line facing the Gokaigers, determination written on all their faces. "If anyone can do it, we can. We just have to _imagine_ it hard enough, right?"

The other ToQgers nod, and Luka wonders what they mean—how they can be so certain that if they just imagine something hard enough it will come to be true.

Any further contemplation of that is cut off by two incongruous sounds—that of a train, though the _Galleon_ is currently moored over water, and a very familiar scream.

Ikari Gai has apparently come home, and from the sounds of it he's not alone.


	3. In Darkness Tinged Saffron

_In Darkness Tinged Saffron_

Right grins as he runs through the grass.

It is almost taller than him, the heads heavy with sees, and he barely restrains a laugh.

He mustn't laugh. If he laughs, he'll be found, and the game will be over.

"Riiiiight!"

Mio's voice calls his name, and he dives to the ground behind a strand of bushes.

(Because it isn't right, the voice that calls, though it does belong to Mio. He wears his child's body, the body that belongs to his true age even if it is not one that reflects all he has seen anymore, and she should, as well. But her voice, the voice that calls him...)

He whimpers as pain flares cold across the front of his head. Clapping a hand over his mouth, he keeps the whimper from becoming anything else.

This is just a game.

He is just running from Mio because it is a game, a silly game of ToQgers and Shadows, and he is currently playing the role of Shadow while she plays ToQger.

(Never mind that the ToQgers are anything but a game, never mind that they never play being themselves but rather at being other Sentai teams, and he likes the spike of cold pain it sends across his thoughts, though he doesn't remember why.)

"Right, come on." He can see Mio, now, her head far above the edge of the grass, her eyes searching with a cold determination that doesn't fit the expression on the rest of her face.

(Nothing about her is right. Not her age, not her expression, not the way she walks—Mio doesn't walk like that, sensual and taunting. Mio is straight-forward in romance, as in everything else, and if his thoughts get any slower or colder they will freeze together, _he_ will freeze together.)

"Right, you just need to answer some questions for me." Mio continues to move forward, her tone cajoling.

(Almost right but not right, grown-Mio's voice but not the way Mio speaks, and his fingers are digging into the dirt but he thinks they should be an adult's fingers not his child-thin ones and—)

" _There_ you are." Mio smiles down at him, and he doesn't think it's possible that she covered the distance between where she was and where he is so quickly but clearly she did. "Found you, Right. Which means you owe me some answers."

And now his fingers _are_ an adult's fingers, his body aged to match hers, and in a dizzying torrent of ice-needles along his skin he knows that none of this is real.

"This is real, Right." Mio's hand _feels_ real, brushing against his cheek—feels as real as anything else he has ever felt, as _right_ as all the other times they have touched. "Just tell me about the Greatest Treasure in the Universe, and we can keep playing forever."

He doesn't _know_ anything about the Greatest Treasure in the Universe.

(Mio should know that. Mio is one of his closest friends, knows just as much as he does, and this not-Mio that is asking him questions is clearly not her. _None_ of this world is right, everything twisted just slightly, a work out of a nightmare's imagination, but surely _his_ imagination is stronger, surely a ToQger can see through to—)

The world around them shimmers, a torrent of snowflakes and sleet running before his eyes, and he can see through the brown of not-Mio's eyes to someone else's eyes, someone with red-gold eyes that are somehow both utterly empty and filled with brimming hunger.

Mio's hand clamps onto his arm, fingers that are as familiar as his own squeezing tight. "You'll tell me what you know, Right. One of these days you'll beg to be in my world and tell me everything that you know, and maybe, if you're lucky, I'll tell you _yes_."

And with another burst of frigid agony he is no longer in the field.

He is in a room, a crass, morbid approximation of a medical room, and creatures out of nightmare are moving around him. There are tubes running into both his arms, and he tries to hold back a sob as they are pulled loose, three-fingered hands pressing against his skin until the bleeding stops. Something cold and metallic that he can't see is pulled loose from his head, taking strands of hair with it, and he can't suppress a shudder as it goes.

_This_ is what they've been doing to Marvelous, for he doesn't know how many days.

Rooting through his mind, stealing his memories and his bonds, asking him questions that he may or may not know the answers to, and Right is impressed once more at the pirate's fortitude.

"Don't take him back to the cell yet."

The voice is static-filled, clearly not coming from the same room, and the inhuman creatures he is being tended by immediately step away. Leaving him bound hand and foot and head, but at least he is in reality now.

He thinks.

He hopes.

"How could you tell?" The voice—nominally male, he thinks, though given the other creatures around them maybe not even human—sounds amused.

Right tries not to shiver, hating the way this person—and he has no doubt this is the same person who played at being Mio—can seem to read his thoughts.

"Perhaps this is all just one long rabbit hole—that is the proper phrase, yes? I've acquired so many of them now." Still the voice sounds amused, and Right finds his fear once more replaced by anger, his fists clenching. "But I need you aware of certain things to ask these questions. Like—how were you able to age so quickly?"

Right licks his lips, studying a fluorescent light. What would Mio and Hikari do, if they were here? Stay quiet, that's what. If the enemy wants to know things, staying silent is the best way to keep them from getting what they want.

"And what, pray tell, is this?"

A flicker on the ceiling, and Right watches himself approach the door to his and Marvelous' cell. His eyes are wide and round in his head, his face half covered in blood and his hair a mess. A flicker of shadow walks at his left hand, slides through the bars, and then fades back, Right following.

Zett.

Not as Right saw him, but as these adults, with their twisted imaginations, can see him. As a shadow, flickering and insubstantial, and—

"A letter?" The voice sounds vaguely irritated. "Don't even bother trying to count or recite the alphabet or some such. Braver men than you have tried and failed."

Perhaps. But he has been called brave by the leader of the Kyoryugers, and he can imagine himself staying here, still and silent, and he has to be at least as strong as Marvelous, still spitting more rebellion than blood after far longer here.

Opening his mouth, he starts singing the English alphabet to the tune of "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star".

Let them ask their questions.

Let them look for their answers.

Right already has all the strength he needs, in the light and the dark, and his friends will be coming for him.

XXX

The boy—man, though Marvelous can still see the child with the too-grown eyes staring at him from the young man's face—is singing when they sling him back into the cell.

It's a half-maniacal singing, punctuated by sounds that could be sobs or could be giggles, but it's definitely singing.

Marvelous waits just long enough to ensure he won't be electrocuted again before lunging forward and pulling Right back with him, until they are both resting against the far wall.

"You're fine, Right. You're fine." Marvelous doesn't tell him that he's safe, because he makes it a policy not to lie to people that he likes. He wants to, though—wants to say that he will protect Right, to claim this brave, strong man as his, as crew, but first he has to figure out how to _get_ them both safe. "It's over."

He doesn't add _for now_. He doesn't need to.

After several minutes Right's singing slows, trails off, and Marvelous finds the man clinging to him, Right's fists buried in the tattered, charred remnants of his shirt and vest.

After an even longer period Right speaks, his voice thick. "How? How... do you know this is real?"

"Because I trust myself." For now, for the moment, though he doesn't add that. "Because they'll never know us, not really. They can't."

Right's head moves, the barest nod. "Because they're not heroes?"

"Because they're not part of a Super Sentai." Remembering the heady feeling of declaring that the Gokaigers would take their place among the ranks of Earth's heroes, Marvelous hopes that it will provide some comfort to the Earthling—remind him more firmly of who he is, of where he comes from. Marvelous keeps his arm around Right's shoulders, holding the man, providing what physical comfort he can. Making sure that _this_ world—the real world, he thinks-hopes-knows—is somewhere Right will want to fight for.

"But we are." Right breathes out the words, his hands relaxing slowly. "And our teams will come for us."

"Our teams will come for us." Marvelous says the words with all the conviction in his heart.

Their crews will come for them, and all they have to do is make sure there's enough _them_ left to be brought back.


	4. Pink

_Chapter Three: Pink_

Build Ressha careens over the water, the familiar sight and sound of the train a balm for Kagura's heart as she follows everyone else up onto the deck of the _Gokai Galleon_.

It isn't _just_ Build Ressha, though—there is another mech hanging off of it, a blue-and white robot with clawed legs and a drill for a right hand. The robot is currently emitting an impressive shriek, and after a moment Kagura is able to make out words in the cacophany.

"I'm your _sempai_ , please just listen to me—" Build Ressha flashes upward, swirling into a loop that causes the words to dissolve into incoherent screaming.

"Gai..." Ahim looks as though she can't decide whether she should laugh or cry as she watches the fast-approaching train.

"Akira!" Tokatti rushes to the edge of the deck, waving his arms. "Akira, we're fine! Please don't try to kill one of the Gokaigers!"

"Oh, no!" Rushing up to stand by Tokatti, Kagura begins waving frantically, as well. "Akira! Akira, we really shouldn't be fighting with our—"

The train shoots over the _Gokai Galleon_ , screaming robot trailing behind.

Tokatti and Kagura share a glance before running to the opposite railing and once more beginning to scream.

The second time Build Ressha buzzes past the pirate ship, it's moving at a slower clip, and the screaming from inside the dangling robot has once more become comprehensible pleas for whoever is piloting the train to please just listen to reason.

A few seconds later Build Ressha settles onto the sandy shore, and Kagura leans against Tokatti with a sigh. "That was close."

"Yeah." Hikari has his kendama in hand again, is tossing the ball from one resting place to another. "Hard enough surviving attacks from our enemies without accidentally getting blown up by our friends, too."

"If Akira's here..." Mio's expression changes from thoughtful to excited. "Maybe he has our Changers!"

"Hopefully." Hikari glances behind him. "Because it's going to be hard for us to fight like this."

Peeking between her friends, Kagura is just in time to see Joe and Luka return from armored to human forms. Reaching out, Kagura latches onto the sleeve of Mio's jacket. "But we will fight. Even without our Changers, if we have to. Until we have Right back."

Mio smiles back at her, patting her hand. "Right."

Kagura can't help a small giggle, and Mio begins to giggle along with her after a moment, followed by Tokatti. Even Hikari smiles, joining in the mirth as they are once more struck by the English pun inherent in Right's name, though his shoulders are still tense, the ball of his kendama sliding back and forth with decisive _thunks_.

It doesn't take long for Akira and a very energetic man who can only be GokaiSilver to arrive at the _Galleon_.

Akira's expression is grim, and he charges up the rope ladder ahead of the Gokaiger.

Kagura throws herself onto the larger man, running her hands under his jacket, glad to feel him warm and solid and _here_. "Akira! We've missed you."

"I've missed you all, too." Akira's hand pets her head, his touch gentle almost to the point of awkwardness. "What happened? Are any of you hurt? Did _they_ hurt—"

"Uh uh, no one's hurt." Tokatti smiles, adjusting his glasses so that they sit more comfortably on his nose. His smile fades after a few seconds. "But Right's not here, and we don't know where he is. These are the Gokaigers, a previous Super Sentai team, and their captain's been kidnapped, too, and we think it may have been the same people and—"

"And we need to find them." Hikari finishes Tokatti's rambling string of information, tucking his kendama back into his pocket as he does. "So we're really glad you came, but we're going to need our Changers, if you have them."

Akira settles back on his heels, putting him almost at eye-level with them. "I do have them. But... are you sure you want them? We just barely got you back your lives before. If you take up the power again..."

"Sir." Ahim steps forward, looking beautiful and perfect in her flowing dress. "My name is Ahim de Famille. I am one of the Gokaigers—one of an earlier team of Super Sentai. I apologize if my people frightened you—"

"I didn't _do_ anything, I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time!" The man with the silver scarf around his neck looks somewhat bedraggled, and he stares at Akira with wounded eyes. "I was looking for the Shadow in human guise, and as soon as I found him I got attacked by these weird bug-things but _he_ thought I was with the bugs—"

Akira glares stony daggers at the man. "You were wearing the same uniform as the people who kidnapped my teammates."

"There wasn't supposed to be any _kidnapping_!" The silver-clad man throws his hand up in the air. "We were just supposed to find a group of kids so that they could lead us to the ToQgers so that we could find Marvelous."

"Yeah, about that, Gai." Luka moves to Ahim's side, closer to their huddle, and Kagura places herself between Mio and the woman who man-handled her. Though she can understand Luka must be as scared for her captain as Kagura is for Right, that's no excuse for carrying Mio around as though she were a package. "As per usual Navi wasn't very clear. Turns out the kids _are_ the ToQgers."

" _What?_ " Gai's mouth drops open, and he takes two steps closer to them, though he stops immediately when Akira half-rises. "But—but you're kids!"

"Yes." Hikari sighs, crossing his arms in front of his chest. "Are we going to have this conversation every time we meet members of an older team?"

Mio gives his arm a little shove. "Not _every_ time. Eventually we'll be old enough that we aren't kids anymore."

Gai continues to stare between them, his team-mates, and Akira, finger moving in a slow circle.

"Come on." Joe claps Gai on the back. "Let's go settle down and get comfortable so that we can talk about where we go from here."

They troop back down to the room with the couch, mostly in silence. The Gokaigers insist that the ToQgers take the seats; Akira stands behind the couch, his hands braced on the back, his eyes never leaving the Gokaigers.

Kagura doesn't think they're any danger, though. She thinks, the more she watches them, that they look incredibly sad and scared. Ahim has Gai and the green-clad man they call Doctor bring drinks and small finger-foods that Kagura has never seen before to set on the table. Though Kagura, Mio, and Tokatti sample the food—with a pang of aching loss, because Right would love alien food—the Gokaigers don't seem interested at all. Joe stands stoic and still, his arms crossed in front of his chest; Doc stands at Joe's side, occasionally reaching out to touch his arm and receiving a touch in turn. Luka paces the confines of the room, never stopping; Ahim stands before the table, still looking serene, but she reaches out to touch Luka or Gai any time their frantic movement brings them close. There are dark circles under all their eyes that betray too little sleep and too much action recently.

"Okay." Gai finally brings his eccentric pacing to a stop at Ahim's side. "So we've got the ToQgers. And though it's a little creepy that they're really kids, they're clearly the real deal and it's not our place to say they can't fight when they already have. Earth's already accepted them as heroes. So what do we do now? Take them into space and hope that we find the enemy? Gather up other team leaders before the enemy can?"

Ahim opens her mouth and then closes it again, shaking her head. "I... don't know. Navi can't tell us more..."

Joe and Luka both tense, and Kagura finds herself pulling Mio's hand to her chest, the fingers of both her hands clenched tight around her friend's fist.

Hikari turns so that he's facing Akira. "What about the Rainbow Line? You knew we were kidnapped—do you know where Right is?"

"No." Akira's hands tense on the back of the couch, and his head lowers. "I'm sorry. We try to keep tabs on you. One of the Line's workers saw Tokatti being kidnapped, but by the time I was contacted all of you were missing. I assumed the same people took you all. I'm sorry."

"No need to be sorry." Tokatti reaches out to pat Akira's hand.

Akira doesn't respond, simply staring down at them, and Kagura tries not to whimper at the sheer sadness in his eyes. They still see Akira on regular basis—he will come to play with them, at the tree, and their parents have all asked who the strange man is who seems to take so much joy in their company. But the farther away the war is, the farther away it seems they fall from Akira, too. He is a Shadow, a denizen of the Rainbow Line, a hero, and they have been, for a little bit at least, only children.

Except they _haven't_ been only children. They have done their best to reclaim their lives, but there are times when she is holding baby Daiki that she is surprised by how small her arms are. There are times when she wakes from nightmares, and though her parents are there, her mom and dad's arms so loving and warm, it is Mio or Right or Tokatti or Hikari that she wants—someone else who has seen what she has seen.

Releasing Mio's hand, Kagura stands on the coach, staring into Akira's eyes as she places a hand on his shoulder. "You haven't done anything wrong, Akira. We the ToQgers—we're quite capable of taking care of ourselves. Even if you are the biggest, you're not responsible for taking care of all of us."

Mio nods, using her newly freed hand to pull her backpack down into her lap. "You weren't the one with Right when he was kidnapped—that was the rest of us. And I don't know if it's related, but I did find _this_ around the time Right disappeared."

The feather that Mio pulls from her bag is beautiful, a shimmering black with gold outlines. Kagura reaches out to touch it, surprised by how stiff and sharp the lacy barbules that make up the feather are. "You think it's from whoever or whatever took Right?"

Doc is kneeling in front of Mio before the words have finished leaving Kagura's mouth. He holds out his hand, fingers shaking with anticipation. "Would you mind if I took a look at it? Maybe took some samples?"

Mio shakes her head, allowing the feather to fall into the Gokaiger's hand. "You think it could help?"

"Depends. If it's from whoever took him... I can run an analysis of what kind of elements are in it, and there's no guarantee but maybe—"

Joe smiles, though it is more of predatory grin as he stalks over and claps Doc on the shoulder. "We can narrow down where they came from—chase them down that way."

Doc is still nodding when the sound of a train whistle blasting very close by causes everyone to jump.

Kagura can feel the blood draining from her face as her head immediately moves in the direction of the whistle. It _can't_ be. How could it be? They _beat_ the Shadow Line. They killed _everyone_ , killed even Zett, because the alternative was too terrible to imagine, and—

And yet there is the familiar clatter of rails and wheels, and the tread of something heavy on the stairs down from the deck to the room where they are sitting, and Kagura finds herself shoved back onto the sofa as Akira vaults over the sofa to stand in front of all of them, his Changer in hand, his henshin phrase rolling off his tongue.

Luka, Joe and Ahim are also transforming, weapons appearing in their hands; Doc has a harder time, Akira's spectacular leap having shoved him into a flailing pile of arms and legs with Mio, Tokatti and Hikari, but he has a key in one hand and the device the Gokaigers use to transform in the other.

And then the person walking slowly, methodically down the stairs swings into view, and relief and surprise and joy all stab through Kagura like the sharpest weapon. " _Grita!_ Oh, Grita, you're _alive_!"

Scrambling between the clearly confused Gokaigers, Kagura throws herself onto Grita, enveloping the Shadow in a tight embrace. She can feel tears pricking at her eyes, and she tries to blink them away even as words tumble off her tongue. "I thought—we thought—Zett said that he killed you, that you sacrificed yourself for our town, but you're _here_ , you're—"

"I'm here. I'm alive." Grita's too-large hand brushes over Kagura's head. "I've come to help you, if I can."

"Help us?" Hikari speaks from behind her, and Kagura turns to see that Hikari, Tokatti and Mio are all standing behind her. Tokatti and Mio are smiling broadly; Hikari looks more pensive. "You know what's happened?"

"Yes. Right's been kidnapped and taken away from Earth—taken beyond our power to affect outcomes." Grita turns to the Gokaigers. "There is another man being held there with him."

"Marvelous." Joe breathes the word, dropping out of his transformation and taking a step toward Grita. "Where? How do you know about it?"

"We can give you a heading—a location." Grita's voice becomes quieter, less certain, her hand hesitating in its stroking of Kagura's hair. "As to how we know... Right and Zett are still connected. He pulled on Zett's power to induce aging, and Zett was able to track that thread, though he can't free Right. He doesn't have the power or the authority."

"Zett..." Kagura takes a staggering step back, feeling the other ToQgers catch her. "He's... alive?"

Grita inclines her head in a nod. "I saved him. You all stripped him of most of his power, but I... he let me live, and I couldn't let him just disappear back into the darkness. Not when I thought there was a chance he could still learn."

"He tried to kill Right." Hikari's voice is a low growl.

"He hurt so many people—used everyone in our hometown as pawns..." Tokatti fumbles nervously with his glasses.

Kagura can only nod, the only words she can think to add being _he's scary_ , and that seems too childish—though Zett _is_ scary, is horrifying in so many ways, and she can never tell if it's when he's sad and hurting them or when he's given in to his Shadow nature and is hurting them that he frightens her most.

"He... wants to help us?" Mio's voice is quiet as she asks the question, but it's an intense quiet, a contemplative quiet. "Of his own volition?"

"We've talked about it." Grita inclines her head. "If you'll allow us, we'd like to help."

"All right." Mio takes a step forward, laying her hand on Grita's arm. "I'm glad that you're alive. Really, really glad. And if you think he's trustworthy... if you think it's all right..."

Tears shimmer in Grita's eyes, there and gone in the space of seconds.

Then she is calling up the stairs, telling Zett that it's safe for him to descend, and the Emperor of Darkness is once more standing before them.

He looks both the same and different. His clothes are mostly the same, though he has changed the color and cut slightly, taking out even more of the black. His voice is the same, cocky and assured as he says, "Yo, ToQgers, Zaram."

But he moves just slightly different, a hesitation to his walk. There is a tension to his eyes that she has never seen before, a hesitancy, as though he doubts what will happen.

Grita stands at his side—stands just slightly in front of him, between him and the rest of them—and he allows it, hangs back, waiting for her to suggest their next move.

"We'll tell you what we know of their location in a moment." Grita inclines her head to the Gokaigers. "But first... do you want to have your older forms?"

Kagura takes a step back, away from the group—away from the suggestion. She has been measuring her growth, tracking the slow progress week by week, waiting for the body that she remembers to match this body she now has, but to willingly give it away... to sacrifice holding Daiki to have the arms that it feels she should have to wrap around him...

"For Right." Mio raises her head defiantly.

"For our predecessors." Tokatti glances over at the Gokaigers, who are clearly still caught between confusion and hope.

"For our world." Hikari sighs, closing his eyes. "We can't let anyone think they can just steal children from Earth with impunity."

Mio turns to Kagura, holding out her hand, a small, sad smile on her face. "They remembered us before. No matter what, I'm sure they'll remember us again."

Her family.

Her beautiful, wonderful family, the restaurant that they have, and she can't imagine living without them.

Just as she can't imagine Right's family having to continue on without him—or the four of them having to continue on without Right. With a Right-shaped hole in their lives, one that they will know and recognize, yes, which is better than last time, but one they will still never be able to fill.

"For Right." Taking a Mio's hand, Kagura whispers the word. "And for all of us and all our families."

The darkness _hurts_.

She had forgotten how much it hurt, the first time. Forgotten how the darkness holds so many different flavors of distress and pain—physical pain, obviously, but more than that. The numbing empty dark of despair; the hot, sharp burn of anger so great her heart can barely comprehend it; the tearing disorientation of grief and loss; the bitter tang of helplessness in the back of her throat; so many layers to the darkness, to the agony of cold diving deep into her bones, and she has to escape it, has to find some way, _any_ way to make it go away.

And then her body finds a way, stretching, growing, changing, and she sobs because it is a relief, in so many ways. It is an instant lessening of the cold, a pushing away of the darkness trying to fill her; and it is a return to a body that she has been missing, to a strength and solidity that she loves even though she wants, too, to be her small, fast, swift child-self.

The Gokaigers are staring at them, faces slack in various levels of wonder and awe and fear. Joe and Luka have weapons raised—Joe two swords, Luka two guns—but they seem uncertain what to do with them.

"There." Mio sighs, shaking her head, shedding bits of darkness down to the ground. "Now that we look more like the soldiers we really are, let's get on with the rescue mission."

Mio's hand finds Kagura's, though, squeezes tight, and Kagura knows the unspoken message in the contact.

They are no different now than they were thirty seconds ago, when Zett's power lapped out to surround them. They are children, and they are soldiers; they are ToQgers, and they want to be home with their family.

Squeezing Mio's hand back, Kagura turns resolutely to where Zett stands by Grita. "Thank you, Zett. Now if you can help us find Right..."

XXX

Everything happens quickly once the children are replaced with adults who share the same eyes and speech patterns.

Akira hands out Changers to the ToQgers, who strap them swiftly on with the ease of long practice.

Ahim has Joe take Zett to the bridge, and they begin plotting a course.

Doc takes the feather and a curious Tokatti to his work-room, beginning his analysis, in case it will come in useful later.

Luka takes Kagura, Mio, and Hikari to the kitchen, where the children-adults will hopefully be able to help her produce something edible for their guests.

Ahim contacts who she can from other Sentai that they know, warning them that someone is targeting team leaders.

And then Ahim finds herself alone, briefly, able to breathe deeply and try to identify all the threads she has been struggling to weave into a cohesive pattern for the last five days.

She settles into a chair by one of the windows, watching as the stars slowly shift. Their unexpected Shadow guests—and she is still just barely able to understand what that _means_ , the distinction between Shadow and human that the ToQgers throw about—will be leaving soon. The _Galleon_ will leap out into the stars, and they will hopefully, finally, have their captain back.

"Ahim?" Gai's voice is tentative, his touch on her shoulder gentler than the fall of thread.

Lifting her head from where she had unwittingly rested it against the window, Ahim turns to smile at the Earthling. "Sorry. I'm fine. Is everything—"

"Everything's okay." Gai's fingers squeeze her shoulder, and he gives her a bright smile that falters after a moment. "Well... as okay as it can be, anyway."

As _okay_ as the crew can be when an essential element has been cut away from it, and Ahim finds that both her hands are pressing against her chest, against her aching heart. She knows the rest of the Gokaigers are feeling the same grief, the same frustrated helplessness—can see it in Gai's dimmed smile, has felt it in Luka's hands when the thief touches her over and over for reassurance. Sees it in the return of all Joe's old soldier reflexes, patterns of reaction and retaliation that he had been finally, slowly shedding; hears it in Doc's voice, when he bemoans the lack of information that allows them to form useful theories.

But they need no theories now. Now they have a heading and a course, and they will make whoever did this pay. "We're going to get him back."

"I know." Gai nods, smiling blossoming again. "This isn't how the story ends."

"Gai..." Ahim closes her eyes, caught between wistful appreciation of Gai's certainty and an unfair anger that he can still call their lives and their losses a story.

His hand takes hers, his weapon-callouses sliding over hers. "Not because there's not death and pain in the stories, but because we won't ever let it end like this. We won't ever just let one of us disappear. We'll find our captain, and we'll get him out, and we'll beat the bad guys—and if we can't, whatever heroes come after us will. Because there will always be heroes, as long as Earth is standing."

"And that makes it all right to bring _children_ with us as soldiers?" Her hand is shaking, she realizes, her whole body trembling with the emotions she hasn't let show. She was trained to be a leader before she became a pirate, and in Marvelous' absence she has done her best to take up that role again. To accept the resources that are given to them, to use them to her best advantage—but to take the children who stared at them with their too-old eyes and throw them against something that could spirit away _Marvelous—_

"We're not bringing them anywhere they don't want to go." Gai's thumb traces patterns on the back of her hand, and after too long she realizes that the patterns are symbols. Warrior symbols, the signs of the various Super Sentai that have come before them. "If we tried to leave them behind, they'd find a way to catch up. Their leader is missing, too, remember."

"Just because they _want_ to do it doesn't mean _letting_ them is the right thing to do."

"And could you really tell them no?" Gai seems to consider the question himself, his eyes dropping to their entwined hands. "Because I couldn't. We'll have to have them tell us their story—a coherent version of it, rather than the rumors that are running around. But from what we know and what they've said, they've been through worse. That... _whatever_ they went through, when they aged up, even just a _touch_ of that darkness was worse than... worse than a lot of things."

Ahim nods, closing her eyes, picturing the strange Shadow reaching out his hand to let darkness flow over the children. The look on his face as he did it—she will never forget that look, filled with so many emotions. Sorrow, desire, _hunger_... jealousy? And the look on Grita's face, sad but determined—the looks on the _children's_ faces—

"We let them make their own decisions. We try to protect them." Gai's thumb sketches out a quick skull-and-crossed-swords design on her skin. "We don't forget what they really are, but we accept what they can become. We accept that the Earth isn't going to give the power of a Super Sentai to someone who shouldn't have it."

"I'm not doubting their abilities." She's seen too many fighters, some of them far too young, to ever doubt the abilities of even child soldiers. "But if the Earth is desperate enough to give this power to children..."

"Or maybe the children were desperate enough to _need_ it." Gai squeezes her hand once before letting it go. "To call for it, to demand it."

_That_ she can picture far too easily, especially if she imagines the face of her crew-mates. How young was Luka the first time she stole to eat—how young when she watched her sister die? How young was Joe, the first time he held a sword? Too young, she knows—he remembers learning to hold a sword before he learned to use utensils, he told her once. And Marvelous... Marvelous, taciturn about his past, has told her very little, but he was young when a ship burned around him and Gavan shared his life. And given that said ship didn't belong to his people... how young when he first saw death? She and Doc and Gai were lucky to have their childhoods. "Why does it always seem that there's another battle needing to be fought, Gai? Why can't we win and have it be _over_ , have the darkness be _gone_?"

"Because the darkness isn't something that can disappear." Gai's hand runs over her hair, tucks stray strands back into place. "Because, as a famous man once said, all evil needs to win is for good men to do nothing. But every enemy we beat, every step we take towards a peaceful galaxy, every Sentai team born to fight a specific enemy—they all help corral the evil back, and one day we _will_ win."

"You believe that so strongly." She smiles, though she can hear the tears wavering her own voice. "You have such faith."

"So do you, when you're not running on ten hours' sleep in five days." Gai's hands suddenly clench her shoulders, fierce and firm. "You believe in the stories as much as I do—as much as Marvelous does. That's why we put away the Greatest Treasure in the Universe. Because we know that what we have, what we've won, is worth it. Is enough. Especially when combined with what we'll win in the future."

It's an oversimplification of a very complicated question—did they even have the _right_ to consider erasing and rewriting history, changing the universe—but it is a part of the truth. Enough of the truth that Ahim allows herself to step forward, resting her forehead against Gai's shoulder and weeping out her frustration and exhaustion.

She doesn't give in to her grief for long. Just a few moments, less than a minute, but when she straightens she can smile at Gai. "We'll make sure it's enough."

He grins, a broad, open, happy expression that lights his whole being. There is no censure in him, no sign that she shouldn't have been so open with her own emotions—good and bad, pleasant and painful, Gai embraces all that he feels and shows it happily to the world. "We'll be fine, and we'll keep them safe. So how about we can go see—"

"Um..." The voice is small, hesitant, and Ahim can hear echoes of the child-Kagura in it, just as she can see echoes of the child-Kagura in this older one's face. She holds a tray in front of her, on which are arranged a series of slightly misshappen cupcakes. "Dinner should be ready in about twenty minutes, but in the mean-time I decided to make everyone a snack since I think we could all use it..."

"Ah, thank you!" Gai bounces over to the young woman, brilliant grin still shining. "You are absolutely amazing and— _ah!_ "

Ahim startles, rushing to Gai's side at the unexpected squawk, her hand reaching automatically for her weapons. She doesn't draw anything, though, because even as the volume startles her, the tone makes it clear that Gai is ecstatic.

"You put the Sentai symbols on them!" Gai's fingers dart around the plate, hovering over various cupcakes. "Such a good job with them, too! Oh, no, which one do I take? This is _ours_ , look, Ahim, it's the Gokaiger symbol! It's perfect! Well, actually a little tilted starboard but _close enough_ to perfect, and _this_ is the Go-Busters, crazy guys, they were, and _oh_ , this must be _your_ symbol, but probably I should take something from one of the older teams—"

Kagura raises her head and gives Ahim a tentative smile, before casting a questioning glance down at Gai.

"Don't worry." Ahim clasps her hands in front of her, trying not to smile _too_ much as Gai continues to exclaim over the cupcakes. "He just gets like this when Sentai are involved."

"Yeah, Hikari said he thought Gai-san was a Sentai fan..." Kagura bites her lip, and Ahim has the distinct impression the girl is trying not to giggle. "I had to ask Tokatti to help with some of the designs, but it seemed like something fun to do to celebrate our team-up. Not that we have much to celebrate, and I don't mean to say that you _have_ to, but—"

Lifting the cupcake with the Gokaiger symbol on it from the tray, Ahim takes a bite. "Delicious. And we're always happy to meet new teams, even if the circumstances could be better."

"Oh, I don't know which one to choose!" Gai closes his eyes, grabbing a cupcake at random. "Boukenger! Adventurers! Perfect. Thank you. Also what Ahim said—we don't get to meet other Sentai teams very often, and it usually seems to be only when bad things are happening, so we'll celebrate while we work. Make new friends while saving the old. Protect the Earth while reconnecting with it."

Ahim takes another small bite of her cupcake, while half of Gai's disappears into his mouth. "To the meeting of new friends and the preservation of the old."

Setting the tray down, Kagura picks up the cupcake with the ToQger symbol on it. "To saving the Earth and seeing the stars."

Gai swallows his bite. "To heroes, lights in the universe no matter where they are."

It's terribly inappropriate, toasting with cupcakes that have been nibbled on. All of her etiquette trainers—had they survived their homeworld's destruction—would have been devastated to see her doing it.

But Ahim still finds herself smiling as takes a bite of her cupcake—even giggling as Kagura giggles, watching Gai choke on a cupcake.

They have a course and a plan and allies.

No matter how dark the path gets, they will find a way to the end.


	5. In Darkness Tinged Rose

_In Darkness Tinged Rose_

Ahim's arms wrap around his waist, and Marvelous leans back with a sigh, letting the woman support some of his weight.

"The stars are beautiful, aren't they?" Ahim makes the comment softly, and a quick glance shows that her eyes are fixed on the same stars he has been watching through the _Galleon's_ rigging.

"They are." Marvelous can't help smiling as he reaches out a hand, cupping his fingers around familiar star clusters. "I like it better when we're out there among them, but there's something about the way they twinkle when seen through an atmosphere like this that's... irreplaceable."

"Sometimes worlds are worth visiting." Ahim continues to speak softly, in a voice that is designed to be heard just by him, though there is no one else on deck right now. "Worth protecting."

"They are. I wouldn't have believed it, once, but they definitely are." Marvelous sighs again, surprised at how comforting he finds Ahim's touch.

(As though he hasn't been touched much, recently, but that can't be right. All of his crew know how tactile he is, how much he wants to touch and be touched, and the only reason he would be craving touch is if—)

Ahim's hold tightens, drawing his thoughts away from their path, and the headache that had been growing recedes. Placing his hand over hers, Marvelous smiles. "Any particular planet you're thinking about?"

"Earth." Ahim answers swiftly, and there is a need and hunger underlying the words that Marvelous doesn't understand.

"Well, I'm probably not the one you want to be talking to, then." Patting her hand, he turns his gaze once more up to the stars. "I'm sure Gai would be very happy to talk about his home, if—"

"What do you think happened to it, Marvelous?"

Marvelous frowns, pulling away from Ahim so he can turn and see her expressions clearly. "What do I think happened to _what_?"

"To the Greatest Treasure." Ahim gives a little snort—familiar, because he has heard, he thinks, all of her reactions to various situations, but also _wrong_ , because she should not make that sound here. "I know there's a lot of other fascinating things on that planet, but I'd say that's the most fascinating, especially for us pirates, right?"

( _Wrong_ , so much wrong, not the right pattern to her speech, not the right vocal inflections, _wrong wrong wrong—_ )

Her hand grasps his, holding tight, and it feels so _right_ , so perfect, like when she has held his hand a hundred other times, and Marvelous stares down at their intertwined fingers as pain stabs through his head in time with his heart.

"Marvelous..." Her voice is calm, soothing, every bit the diplomat that he is not. "I'm just curious, that's all. It was such an _important_ discovery—the most important one ever made in the history of the universe, don't you think?"

"It..." He blinks, his vision hazing in and out in time with the pain. Ahim should _know_. Ahim was _there_ , helped to make the decisions about what they would do. "It doesn't exist anymore. We destroyed it."

"Do you really think you could destroy something like _that_?" Ahim smiles, but it is not her smile. "Something with the power to make and break _universes_ , and you think you could _destroy_ it? Destroy your access to it, perhaps, but not destroy the _power_."

Her voice, her touch, but not her smile, not her speech pattern, and he _knows_ , abruptly, through the pounding agony, that this isn't real.

"But you want it to be real." Her hand is gentle on his face, though her eyes are mocking. "I'm getting better, and you so very badly _want_ it to be real that soon you won't notice. Soon you'll tell me, and I'll get what I need. Now _forget_ , Marvelous. Forget, my little pirate, and—"

The sword comes from nowhere, but it doesn't matter because it isn't real.

Just as the blood dripping down isn't real, the pain and dismay on Ahim's face as she staggers back with a Gokai blade impaling her isn't real, and he forces herself to watch the eyes. The angry, frustrated, _furious_ eyes that tell him that this is not his crew.

Forces himself to see all the holes in the simulation, the way the _Galleon_ doesn't quite move properly for the gusts of wind running through the orange planes around them.

Forces himself into the pain that means he is doing what _they_ do not want him to do.

If the choice is between giving them what they want and breaking himself against the shackles they are trying to bind him in mind and soul, then it's really no choice at all.

XXX

Right almost doesn't recognize Marvelous when the guards fling him into the cell.

It isn't any of the human guards—or the guards who look human, at least. It is the strange creatures that first captured him who carry a struggling Marvelous between them, open the door as swiftly as they can, and throw the pirate in.

Marvelous' feet have barely made contact with the ground before he is throwing himself at the door. The remains of the pirate's shirt and vest, which have become steadily more tattered as time passes, are now charred threads barely draped across bruises and burns. Blood flows steadily from open wounds on his head and arms, especially his temples and the inside of his elbows and wrists; flows too steadily, at a pace that frightens Right, who has seen how the pirate can heal inhumanly fast from injuries.

Marvelous doesn't make a sound. That somehow makes it more horrible, how silent and focused he is as he launches himself at the guards.

The guards are beautiful, in an eery, alien way. Their feathers shimmer gold in the artificial lights of the hallway, lending a luminosity to their beaked faces and trailing wings. The wasp-like abdomens and long, spindly legs move gracefully, a fusion that is entirely unnatural.

As Marvelous' hands close on the iron, his arms shoving through to reach for them, one of the guards lifts its electric prod and applies it to the bars.

The other guard follows suit a moment later, and Right can only watch in horror as Marvelous' body arches, his muscles all trying to clench at once.

The first shocks don't drop the pirate, though, Marvelous staying stubbornly on his feet.

Right covers his ears as the guards touch prods to cell bars again, though he keeps his eyes fixed grimly on what is happening.

The guards don't leave until Marvelous is a panting, shivering heap in front of the cell door, the pirate's breathing rough and ragged.

He _is_ still breathing, though, and Right isn't going to let that change.

Grabbing the chipped water jug, Right moves to the pirate's side. If he rips the rest of his shirt into bandages, he should be able to—

He isn't quite sure how he ends up on the floor, the pirate crouched atop him, hands pressed against his throat in what is clearly attempted murder. He doesn't have time to ponder it, either, because as much as he hates the dank scent of their cell and the scorched scent that is rising from Marvelous' skin smelling _anything_ is better than not breathing.

His hands slip on Marvelous' bloody arms, trying to find purchase, to push the older man away. Marvelous' lips pull back from his teeth in a feral threat, and Right abruptly stops fighting.

He doesn't want to hurt this man.

Whatever they've done to push Marvelous to this point, it isn't Marvelous' fault, and the more Right fights the more Marvelous will fight back against him. _That_ Right understands far too well—it's how they both function, after all, returning force with force, kindness with kindness.

Marvelous' arms are trembling, his fingers also slick, and after a few seconds his hands relax enough that Right is able to draw a choked breath.

Just enough for a word or two, but a word or two is all he needs.

" _Crew_..." He has heard Marvelous say the word often enough, both while conscious and while unconscious. "Gokaiger..."

And just like that Marvelous' weight vanishes from atop him, the pirate lurching back, an awkward, ungainly skuttle on hands and knees that ends with him curled in the corner, hugging his knees to his chest.

Coughing until he can breathe properly again, Right assesses his situation. The water jug has tipped over, and he reaches out to slowly right it, keeping one eye on Marvelous the whole time. He doesn't know how often they refill the water—more frequently than they offer food, he knows that, but he has lost track of time in this prison with its unchanging lights. All he knows is that he is hungry and dirty and would rather be anywhere else than here... well, almost anywhere else. At least _here_ is better than the room with the machine that distorts reality, that allows someone he _hates_ though he has never seen them access to his head.

"Marvelous." Right approaches the pirate carefully, moving sideways, presenting himself as unthreateningly as he can. As though Marvelous were like the stray dog that he and Mio found and saved, the one that growled and snapped in fear and pain until they won its respect. "It's me. You know me, yeah?"

"Right." His name is whispered through chattering teeth, and Right can feel the darkness inside him rising, Zett's power summoned by his helplessness and rage and fear.

"Yeah." Right nods, continuing to edge closer. "Let me take care of you for a few minutes, okay? You're hurt."

Marvelous' right hand buries itself in the pirate's hair, cupping his right ear and temple, fingers digging in as he closes his eyes. "This is real. You're real. Know you're real. _They_ wouldn't have known to say that. It's over, right? Won, for a little bit."

"It's over for now." Right has worked his way to the pirate's side, but he finds his hands hovering, uncertain where to start. "This is real. You're with me, and we're waiting for our crews, yeah? I'm sure they'll be here soon."

Marvelous laughs, a hoarse, strained, half-mad sound, his body staying pressed against the wall.

Not good.

Right needs to do something, _say_ something, find the words to help Marvelous refocus on where he is and what they're doing. Wracking his brain for every snippet of information he ever saw on the news or heard Tokatti mention about the Gokaigers, he tries to pick his words carefully, like Hikari or Mio would do. "Marvelous... what is it that you want right now?"

"Don't let them have it." The answer is short, spoken with a deep, visceral desire, and Marvelous' lips pull back from his teeth again. "Don't let them win."

"And they win if they get it." He doesn't have to ask what _it_ is—he knows, has been interrogated less frequently and for shorter durations but no less vigorously than Marvelous has been about the location and proper use of the Greatest Treasure in the Universe. "But they also win if they get you. If your crew gets here and you're not... if you aren't here to fight beside them."

A sound escapes from Marvelous that reminds Right of something a cat would make, half-growl, half-mewl.

Strengthening his voice, Right reaches out to gently touch the pirate's shoulder. "What does a pirate do if they want something?"

Marvelous' eyes turn to him, and after seconds that feel like hours they focus, the pirate's lips turning up into an expression that is _almost_ his trademark smirk. "A pirate takes what they want."

"So we're going to take our information, and we're going to take our lives, and we're going to take our sanity, and we're going to go _home_." His voice cracks on the word _home_ , and Right has to take a moment to draw deep breaths, to remind himself that he is a ToQger and not a frightened child who has been stolen away by the monsters in the dark. "And if we're both going to go home, I need you to let me help you, okay? I need you to let me bandage you up, because you're still bleeding and I really don't want to be alone in this cell."

Worse than alone, really, being trapped here with the body of a man he's starting to think of as his friend, and Right closes his eyes for a moment, forcing himself to breathe calmly.

Marvelous' hand on his chin causes him to open his eyes, and he finds himself staring across into a gaze that has somehow become completely calm and lucid. The pirate grins again, and this time it looks like the pictures that Right has seen. His voice is strong again as he uncurls, holding out his opposite arm for Right. "They'll never be able to really fool us. They'll never be able to do _that—_ to be a hero, and speak a hero's words."

Right finds himself returning the smile—remembering times before this all started, before they lost their memory, before they were heroes in their own right, when he and his friends used to play at being Sentai teams, and he would fight with Mio for the right to be Marvelous. "They'll never ever understand what it means to be a pirate and a part of a Super Sentai team."

"Or what it means to be the light holding the Shadows at bay." Marvelous rolls his head around on his neck and winces. "They'll never understand us, and that means they'll never get what they're looking for. So bandage me up, Right. We've still got a few more rounds to go before this is over."

Right does as the pirate bids him, trying hard not to worry about the extent of Marvelous' injuries.

They're alive and they're keeping each other sane.

Surely their crews will catch up to them before they fail at either task.


	6. Blue

_Chapter Four: Blue_

They find themselves tailing the ship that has Marvelous and Right within hours of starting out on the heading that Zett and Grita gave them.

It takes them days to catch up, though.

Joe hates the waiting. Hates the tiny blip on the display that indicates the ship where their compatriots are being held, the dot coming slowly, agonizingly slowly, closer.

He uses every trick he has to catch them up to it.

Doc uses every trick he knows to urge just a little more speed out of the _Galleon_.

And they don't _lose_ the little dot, at least. They gain on it, in fractions so small he can barely measure them, and it is only Luka and Ahim's insistence that he must have _some_ sleep before they go into battle that keeps him off the bridge for any length of time during the four and a half days that they chase the ship down.

The ToQgers spend the time alternating between wandering about the ship, practicing with their weapons, and sitting on the bridge, eyes fixed on the little dot that indicates their destination with unerring determination.

Joe doesn't know quite what to make of the ToQgers, and there are more important things to focus on, so he largely tries to ignore them. He has enough to occupy his mind, making sure that they follow every twist and turn their targets take, looping in broad arcs through Sol's solar system and beyond, never traveling more than a day from Earth.

And then, as they creep further and further into a fifth day, the dot on the screen becomes something that they can see with their own eyes, and Joe throws himself into battle preparations with feverish energy.

Fighting he can handle.

Fighting is something he is good at—something he can affect the outcome of. Fighting is _active_ , is _doing_ something, and he would much rather face a thousand firefights than another day's worth of waiting.

(Would much rather know for sure that something horrible has happened than be left with his own imaginings, which he hopes—prays, though he has no strong belief in any gods—are worse than any reality could be.)

He allows Luka to pilot the _Galleon_ , Ahim running weapons as they strafe the fleeing ship that stole their captain away.

He leads the boarding party, and though he would much rather just charge in himself and be _done_ with everything he is careful to make sure that Doc and Gai and the ToQgers know their plan of attack before signaling to Luka that they are prepared to board.

"Good, because I'll have us grappled down in about forty-five seconds." Luka's voice is cheerful, but Joe has known her long enough to hear the growling edge that indicates her own fury and fear.

"Everyone suit up, then." Joe pulls out his own key, running his fingers over the familiar features, the strange material that it's made from cool and slick despite having been against his skin mere moments before. If there is a way to destroy the keys, it hasn't been found by friend or foe yet, and Joe steals himself for transformation as—

" _ToQGer!_ " The not-children scream out their team name with an intensity that would do anyone proud, and Joe spins to face them, body acting on instinct before his mind has time to process what the word means. His key twists in his Changer, instantly summoning his slick, well-fitting Gokaiger uniform onto him.

" _Please stand behind the white line!_ " The request is loud but almost placid, and Joe stares at the not-children currently standing before him . What in the stars' good name—

"Stand _here_." Akira grabs his arm, hauling him firmly back away from the hatch and behind where the ToQgers are staring at the white line. It looks like Tokatti is mouthing _please, please_ , Kagura is wiggling in place with her hands up by her mouth, and Hikari and Mio are staring at the line with a glare that could melt metal—none of which makes Joe feel comfort.

And then _something_ is rushing through the corridor, something that passes with a burst of wind and power through a space that Joe is fairly certain is too small for it, and the ToQgers are in uniform, weapons in hand.

Kagura immediately begins jumping in place. "It worked! Oh, it _worked!_ "

Mio, in yellow, throws her arms around the other girl-woman. "It did!"

" _How_ did it work?" Tokatti pushes at his helmet, and Joe is certain that he is pushing up on his glasses, though he can't possibly touch them. "Did anyone see if it looked like the Galaxy Line? Do you think it was Lady?"

Akira, apparently satisfied with the success of his endeavor to keep Joe from being struck by a _train_ in the middle of a _pirate ship_ in the middle of _space_ , claps Tokatti on the shoulder. "It worked because you have a strong enough imagination and you _saw_ it working. That's what Right would say, yes?"

"No..." Doc, also in his Gokaiger uniform, scurries in front of the ToQgers, studying the area where the white lines had appeared and disappeared. "I mean, sure, I'm glad your imaginations worked, it seems like you can harness imagination as a force and that's amazing, but you just _broke physics_ and it sounds like you _didn't know if your armor would work—_ "

"Didn't matter if it did or not." Mio places one hand on her hip. "We were fighting either way."

"But..." Doc raises a hand, then turns to look at Joe and Gai, and Joe can clearly picture the expression of mixed confusion and disbelief on the man's face even through his helmet. "Guys, don't you think that's kind of maybe a little—"

Whatever Doc is going to say is cut off, the _Galleon_ suddenly listing hard to starboard.

Luka's voice crackles over the comms a moment later. "All right, Joe, it's all your show from here. We're latched on good."

Joe doesn't need any more encouragement.

However the ToQgers acquired their weapons and uniforms, they _have_ them, and that's what matters.

There's a certain satisfaction inherent in blowing a hole in a ship's hull. It's not something the _Galleon_ does often, though they _have_ done it, intent on rescuing some special bit of tech or cargo or people from Zangyack ships.

He takes point, pressing forward, blunting enough of the enemy charge to feel confident that those coming behind him will be fine, all the while searching for a hint of where Marvelous and Right might be.

He finds a large cross-corridor before he finds an answer, of course. Why should they make it obvious where their prisoners are? Why should they make anything about this whole debacle _easy_ , when the enemy has shown quite clearly that they're competent and ruthless?

"Brigs are usually down; bridge is usually up." Joe speaks tersely, in a lull in the fighting as the last wasp-bird creature falls. "Can't say for sure, though. Probably time to split up. Gai, you want up or down?"

"Down." Gai answers promptly. "Akira, Kagura, Mio, you're with me."

Joe doesn't wait to watch the others respond. The teams had been predetermined before they started, and he trusts that Tokatti, Hikari and Doc will be following him.

The going is slower after that, Joe trying to handle more of the enemy on his own—not because his team isn't competent, but because he's the best fighter, though Hikari takes a close second.

It's Tokatti who finds the laboratory door, and Joe hates that, hates that someone else—someone not on their team—found Marvelous first.

Not that Joe _should_ have noticed anything. It's just like any other non-descript gray door in the corridor. A small window is set into the door at eye-height, but it's carefully covered with a sliding hatch, and if Tokatti hadn't fallen against it...

But he did, and once he saw what was inside Tokatti had the door open just as fast as Joe ever could, and once the door was open Joe could hear Marvelous _screaming_ , and after that—

He probably should have stopped to consider what the machines were doing.

He probably should have waited until he had Doc or anyone else who had a modicum of knowledge of what they could be looked at the set-up.

He probably shouldn't have simply attacked, but Marvelous was _screaming_ and there were wires hooked up to his _head_ and Joe can't help thinking of Sid and he is a soldier, first and foremost, at his core.

He is a soldier, and soldiers, even more than following orders, are trained to destroy.

So he destroys. His sword flashes through wasp-men and medical equipment and banks of computers with equal abandon, and sometime during his rampage the screaming stops.

He doesn't stop until there isn't anything else that he can attack, and even then he might have continued to destroy already-dead computers if Tokatti hadn't touched his shoulder and called his name.

Marvelous is sitting up on the table that he had been strapped to. Restraints dangle from his bloody wrists. His shirt and vest and coat are all missing, and the exposed skin of his chest and back shows a collection of scars, burns, bruises, and cuts that are all new. The contraption that had been attached to his head is now scattered in pieces on the floor, and Marvelous has his head cradled between his hands, his eyes darting frantically around the room.

Hikari stands by the door, already on watch; Tokatti stands at Joe's side, clearly at a loss for what to do.

Don is already out of suit, his right hand fumbling inside his green jacket. He approaches the table where Marvelous is slowly, carefully, crooning a lullaby in his native tongue that Joe has only ever heard him whisper out at night.

Joe takes a step toward the table Marvelous is sitting on. His foot scrapes against twisted slag metal on the floor.

Marvelous' reaction is instantaneous, a tightening of all his muscles, a whipping of his head around to glare at Joe. His teeth are bared in a feral snarl, and if there is recognition in his eyes, Joe can't see it.

"Joe, stay still. Please." Don tags the _please_ onto the end of the sentence, but it's clearly a command.

A command that Joe follows, because there is currently nothing else in this room to destroy, nothing to vent the agony crawling through his chest on, and so it is better to remain still.

Don starts up the sing-song lullaby again, creeping closer to Marvelous step by cautious step. Marvelous watches him come, head tilting slowly in blatant curiosity, the fear and tension slowly easing out of the line of his shoulders. When he is standing by the bed, Don pulls out the hand that had been rummaging in his coat.

Joe should have realized what he was doing. It shouldn't surprise him to see the Mobirates in Don's hand—Marvelous' mobirates, the one bit of proof they had that something bad happened to him, because Marvelous would never leave it behind. Joe had been the one to suggest that Don carry the Mobirates while he carries the key, but to give it to Marvelous when Marvelous is looking at them with eyes that show no trace of his usual self—

"Joe." Don's voice is high and tight with emotion. "Out of suit. Talk to him. Show him who we are. This isn't like Sid. He was still fighting—you heard him screaming. Come on. Help me."

Marvelous' hand flashes out on the _help me_ , closes on the Mobirates and pulls it close to his battered chest. His eyes flick around the room again, pausing on each person, but he doesn't react.

Doesn't say anything.

Doesn't attack, either.

Joe can't let Marvelous kill him. He absolutely can't. It would be a betrayal of all that Marvelous is, to allow him to harm his crew.

But if there's still a chance... if Don is sure there's a chance...

Throwing off his transformation, Joe picks a slow, quiet path through the destruction he wrought earlier. He pauses only a moment at Marvelous' side, meeting the man's wary dark eyes, before pulling out the GokaiRed key and holding it out toward Marvelous.

Marvelous reaches out hesitantly, eyes darting left, right, up, down, clearly waiting for a trick. His fingers brush against the key, and his eyes narrow. Joe can _feel_ Marvelous' touch traveling up and down the length of the key, feel his hand pause briefly at the few dents that have been etched into it from their long fight.

And then Marvelous' hand snatches the key away from him, holds it close, and the wariness in Marvelous' eyes is replaced by hesitant hope. "Joe? Doc?"

"Ah." Doc's face breaks into the brightest grin, though Joe can hear the edge of tears still in his voice. "That's us."

"You're real? You're here? No, don't answer that; the constructs would lie, and I..." Marvelous weighs the key in his hand, eyes slitting again, though they don't close. "I have to trust myself. You're giving me my weapons back. They haven't done that yet. Give me power. I think... I think it's really you. You're really here. And that means—"

Joe and Doc catch Marvelous as he leaps from the table, stabilize him one under each shoulder when he staggers.

After a few heartbeats Marvelous shrugs them off, standing with his feet braced apart, mobirates in one bloody, manacled hand, key in the other. "I know where Right is—I'm guessing you're his team-mates. It'll take us about four minutes to get there from here. Ready, Gokaigers?"

Doc cheers; Joe just smiles, coming to stand beside his captain.

There have been many times he has loved the transformation. The first time he did it—accepted the power that Marvelous was handing him, began a new chapter in what he thought was the finished book of his life— _that_ had been a beautiful moment.

When they transformed together to face down the Zangyack armada, and Marvelous declared that they weren't just the Gokaigers, they were a Super Sentai, they were heroes of the Earth— _that_ had been a wonderful, heady moment.

And now, standing beside his captain again, catching Marvelous' arm to keep him from falling as they complete the transformation—this is a beautiful moment.

Glancing at Hikari and Tokatti as they all follow Marvelous back out into the hallway, he hopes they all—both teams—get an opportunity to transform together, to feel the power and camaraderie.

Soon, if they can just stay alive.

Which shouldn't be too hard, because Marvelous is _furious_ , and even if he's not the steadiest on his feet he's vicious with his sword and gun, taking down targets almost as quickly as Joe is.

Surely they'll run out of wasp-birds soon.

Surely they'll reach the brig.

Surely they'll—

"Guys!" Luka's voice is transmitted easily through his helmet, so that it sounds as though she is standing right beside him. "Two problems—one, we've got evacuation shuttles leaving the ship. Two so far, and we're tracking trajectories so we can hunt them down later."

Marvelous growls out a curse that Joe doesn't think he's ever heard before.

"Bigger problem is that we're reading a huge energy signature under the starboard hatch, near the engine room. If I'm not mistaken, that tubs going to self-destruct in the next three minutes."

Doc and Tokatti make remarkably similar squeaks of distress.

Marvelous presses forward faster. "Guess that means we'd better make this quick."

XXX

Tokatti stares out through the port-hole at a panorama of stars.

It's beautiful.

It's one of the most breathtaking, gorgeous, immense, wonderful, _unimaginable_ things he thinks he'll ever see.

And he will never be able to think of this moment—of any of the moments he has had aboard the _Galleon—_ without remembering the aching terror and helplessness of missing Right.

It could be worse.

He tells himself that as he stares out at the stars, tells himself that they did well, that they have at least disrupted if not outright stopped the plans of their enemy. They've rescued Marvelous. They defeated a lot of enemies and destroyed the enemy ship—well, watched the enemy ship explode from a safe distance away, at least.

But they didn't find Right. Mio and Kagura and Akira and Gai found the place where Right _should_ have been, the cell that Marvelous described to them all, but it was empty, the door hanging open.

Right was taken away on one of the shuttles that escaped.

It's the only explanation that makes sense. They had searched the ship as carefully as they could before retreating in time to avoid being blown up, and they had seen no evidence of Right, and it wouldn't make sense to move Right if they were just going to blow him up so he must have been taken away on one of the shuttles.

With a torturer.

A child kidnapper and a torturer, and Tokatti tries to forget the way Marvelous' body looked before the rest of the Gokaigers spirited him away and dressed him in a spare shirt and coat. Tries to forget the horror of looking into Marvelous' eyes and seeing not the cock-sure pirate he loved every time the Gokaigers were on the news but instead wary agony.

If they could do that to Marvelous...

"Tokatti?"

Tokatti tries not to start guiltily, and is certain he fails miserably as he fumbles to keep his glasses in place. "Ah, Joe, hello. Sorry. I hope I'm not in the way or that they weren't sending you to find me or—"

Joe waves a hand, and Tokatti forces himself to stop speaking so that the stoic man might actually be able to slip in a few words of his own. "It's fine. If the others are looking for you, they haven't told me."

Silence descends between them, and Tokatti tries not to wiggle too obviously in the seat in front of the porthole. "So... you were just... wandering?"

"Coming to see the view." Joe nods toward the porthole. "It's a nice unimpeded view of the stars here, and quiet. Not many people liable to come wandering in."

"Ah. Yeah. It's gorgeous." Tokatti jumps down off the window bench, moving to the side and gesturing for Joe to approach.

Joe doesn't move from his spot by the door, though. "We'll get him back, you know."

"Of course we will." Tokatti fiddles with his glasses, looking away from the soldier. How far they've come from six days ago, when Joe had thrown Tokatti over his shoulder and carried him away like a pirate trying to shanghai a crew. "How—how's Marvelous?"

Joe hesitates, then takes a step into the room. "He's... shaken. Apparently these guys have—had, hopefully, if the one I destroyed was the only one—a way to get inside people's heads. Try to confuse them, get them to give up information. A... brain-washing tool, if you will."

"That's terrible!" Tokatti can feel his fingers clench into helpless fists. "Why would they do that? What is it that they want?"

Another step into the room, and Joe is standing by Tokatti, his gaze fixed out the window at the stars. "The Greatest Treasure in the Universe."

"But..." Tokatti frowns. "You guys destroyed it, right?"

"So we thought." Joe shrugs, an awkward, uncomfortable motion of his shoulders. "Apparently these guys think otherwise. And their reasoning... isn't crazy. I mean, this is a power that would have been able to rewrite the entire universe. Our pasts. It would have effectively erased the people who used it, replaced us all with versions of ourselves that I'm not sure we'd even recognize. Who would I be if I hadn't been a Zangyack soldier once—if my planet weren't basically a training ground for soldiers of the Zangyack Empire?"

Tokatti swallows, studying the man before him. He has heard some of this, though not all, the details of what happened with the Gokaigers and the treasure shrouded in mystery and hearsay. "Is that... why you decided not to use it?"

"Part of it." The tiniest frown pulls at the corners of Joe's mouth. "We would have been erasing... all that we are. The crew that we've created. But that wasn't all of it. If it was just us... who are we to say that the lives we have now, the friendships and loves we have now, aren't worth the people who would come _back_ , who wouldn't have _died_ if the Zangyack didn't exist?"

Tokatti tilts his head, considering the question. "Who's to say... it would have been better, though? To say that there's been no good people to come out of the Empire, no good to come out of it?"

Joe smiles, the expression again small but very honest as he studies Tokatti from the corner of his eye. "Ah. Exactly. Plus it wouldn't just be us—if we used the Greatest Treasure, _all_ the Super Sentai would have ceased to exist. No more heroes for Earth. No inspiration for your people. In the end... in the end, we decided to fight with what we had."

"And you won. You saved the world. Inspired a whole bunch of people." Tokatti looks away. "Including us."

"Yeah?" Again that small smile, and Joe's arms, which had been crossed across his chest, slowly fall to his sides. "I think we made the right choice."

"But I can see why, if they knew even a fraction of that, our enemies would think the Treasure's still out there." Tokatti tries to pace and finds that the small room, tucked in at the prow of the ship, doesn't allow for more than two steps, especially with Joe's body also occupying it. "It sounds like the Greatest Treasure is the power behind the Super Sentai teams, right? It's Earth's will to have heroes. The people's desire to be kept safe. And Super Sentai teams keep showing up. Ergo, they think the Treasure's still out there."

"Someone who could do..." Joe's lips twist in an expression of absolute disgust. "...what these... _people_... have done must not be allowed to have access to it."

"Agreed." Tokatti nods, standing beside the pirate, staring out at the stars. "We'll stop them. We'll rescue Right, and we'll stop them."

"Exactly." Joe's right arm rises, claps Tokatti on the shoulder before resting there in a gesture that Tokatti's fairly certain is supposed to be comforting. "So... what are you doing up here?"

Tokatti shrugs, looking away. "Watching the stars. They're amazing. It's... not something I think I'll ever get a chance to see like this."

"It's beautiful." Joe nods. "I remember my first time going into space. I was going to be a Zangyack marine, a killer, a solider, but those first moments, seeing the universe spread out before me... seeing all those stars and knowing how many of them had planets and life and opportunity..."

Tokatti swallows, trying to imagine it as Joe would have. "Does it ever... become common? Not wondrous? Just... something that's _there_?"

For a few moments he thinks Joe isn't going to answer him. Then the pirate sighs. "Sometimes. Sometimes everything gets so complicated—so painful—that you see the stars as just dots on a map. Ways to get places. And if that happens, I try to take a step back. To come here, and see it like this, and remember that the universe is vast but the worlds are made up of people like our crew. To remember that each planet has someone who loves it as much as Gai loves Earth. To remember what we're fighting for, so I can be steady for my team."

Tokatti tries to smile, though he can feel it wobble. "I thought you all fought because pirate's take what they want."

"We do." This time Joe's smile has an edge, though Tokatti somehow knows it isn't aimed at him. "We take what we want, whether that's happiness or the safety of our worlds, and the heavens help anyone who gets in our way."

Tokatti can't help but grin in answer to the fierce certainty in the pirate's voice. "And you think... you really think we can get Right back, and he'll be okay?"

"I would have said no, once." Joe turns to face him, Joe's hand still on Tokatti's shoulder. "Once I would have said that it's dangerous to pin all your hopes on one successful mission. But now... I think I've been a Super Sentai member long enough to say _yes_ , we will get him back, and _yes_ , we will protect your world, and _yes_ , we may come out of it with new scars, but we _will_ come out of it. All of us. Together."

Tokatti squeezes his eyes shut, but he's fairly certain tears push through his eyelids anyway, emotions too tight and strong for him to name squeezing his throat and filling his chest.

Joe's arms wrap around him, give him one brief, fierce hug. "Stay for as long as you like. Look at the stars and see their beauty. And when you're ready, come back to your team... and to mine. I'm sure Doc would love to have someone to explain the physics behind the universe to, and I am certainly not that person."

Tokatti nods, still trying to stifle his tears.

By the time he opens his eyes, Joe is gone.

He spends a few minutes studying the starscape outside, the shifting, brilliant, beautiful points of light in the darkness.

Then he heads back to the heart of the ship, to where his still-fractured crew is waiting.

Grabbing Kagura in a surprise hug, he laughs at her squeal of protest.

They're going to get Right back.

He will believe that for as long as he can, and be that point of light in the darkness, calling hope and strength through the power of will and imagination.

Heaven and earth willing, it will be enough to do what they need to do.


	7. In Darkness Tinged Zaffre

_In Darkness Tinged Zaffre_

"Why are you doing this?"

Right doesn't actually expect an answer. The man who took him from his cell, bound and gagged, has been extremely reluctant to talk since they began their ride to... well, to wherever they're going.

He hopes that Marvelous is all right. He hopes that the reason they are currently crammed into a ship with one room, a nav console, and a strange blue light system like nothing he has seen before is that the Gokaigers or the ToQgers or _any_ of the good guys found them.

"Why won't you just _tell me_?"

Right sits up as straight as his bonds will allow. He knows the voice of the golden-eyed man sitting at the control console. Oh, he will know that voice _anywhere_ , and he wonders how much it cost the man to stay silent as he electrocuted Right until he was docile enough to bind in his cell. "You. You're the monster who's been torturing us. Where's Marvelous? Why did you _do_ this to us?"

"He should have just told me how to get it!" The man stares at Right, golden eyes shimmering eerily in the blue light that shines down from the ceiling. "If he told me how to get it, then we never would have needed to come after you. We wouldn't have had to do anything to him! Everyone would have continued on none the wiser."

"You didn't need to come after me." Right grins, pleased to hear that Marvelous, even tired and stretched thin as he had been at the end, still hasn't given up their secret. "You didn't have to torture him. The Greatest Treasure wasn't ever meant for you. All you needed to do is accept that."

"I _won't_." The man hisses, a sibilance to it that sounds like the wasp-birds when they vocalize. "The power to shape the universe, and you and your ilk just _throw it away_? I will _never_ accept that."

"He didn't throw it away, he chose not to use it." Right thinks he has pieced together the story of what happened with the Greatest Treasure, between Marvelous' cryptic comments over the last who-knows-how-long and his own vague recollections of the pirates' adventures. "And you'll never find it, because I don't even know how to go about getting it. Plus, you need all the Ranger Keys, and _that's_ not something you'll ever get."

"We'll take them if we have to." The man spins back around, hunched over his console. "We'll get them one way or another. Don't you think teams would trade those silly little keys for their members? For their leaders? Don't you think the ToQgers would trade a handful of keys for _you_?"

"Only if they thought they could get the keys back. But we don't even _have_ keys."

"You do." The man smiles, a thin, twisted expression. "You may not know it, but you do. To be a Sentai team from Earth you do. Her gift to the children she twists into fighters. Her gift to the _aliens_ she takes as her champions. Her gift to those she chooses, in her fickle, inhuman wisdom."

Right studies the man before him, sensing that they are near the heart of the matter, still unsure what it means. Not that he cares, really. No matter why this man started doing what he's doing, Right can never accept it as anything other than terrible. "We _chose_ to be ToQgers. Multiple times. Would _you_ ever choose it? You, who'd rather steal information using false guises and empty promises?"

Tokatti would be proud of him, he thinks, for using words like _guises_. Or maybe Hikari's the one who would be happy. He's pretty sure Hikari is the one who taught it to him, taking the word from one of those detective novels he loves to read.

"My promises weren't empty." The man turns away from Right, his shoulders hunched, his eyes fixed on the controls. "They were never empty. I would have given you whatever you wanted, once I had the information I needed. A paradise tailored to your desires."

"Something that isn't real."

"That body you wear isn't real, is it?" The tension has faded from the man's voice, replaced by cool disdain. "It's created by _her_ , the treacherous beast. Why should only you be allowed to use unreality to further your goals?"

"Unreality isn't a _word_." He puts a bit of Mio's sneer into the retort, hoping to draw out anger again, to learn more, to find some way to make it work. "And this _is_ my body. Maybe aged up a few years, but it's _me_."

"And you're _mine_ , until I elect to kill you." The man's voice is calm, the same voice that spoke from the ceiling, that haunted his dreams that were nightmares. "Be quiet until I need you. This is delicate work."

Right considers keeping quiet, but he doesn't think this man will kill him. There's too much invested in him right now to do that. "Where are we going?"

"Does it matter?" The man settles back, comfortable in the pilot's chair.

Right squirms into a more comfortable position himself. "Yes."

"I can send you anywhere in the universe that you want." The man turns so that his gold eyes are facing Right again, shining in the dimness. "I can give you all the wonders that you want. A world made to your specifications."

"If it was really so good, you'd be in one of those worlds yourself wouldn't you?" Right doesn't give the man a chance to respond. "But in _this_ world, where are you taking me?"

After a few long moments the man shrugs. "My home. If I'm going to be making any kind of last stand—a last stand I will ensure you don't survive—then it seems more fitting it be at home."

_Home_.

Right closes his eyes, then, imagining a blue sky and small hands in his and a tree with branches that seemed to reach right up into space.

He wants to go _home_.

His team will be coming to get him. Marvelous' crew will be coming to get him.

And he will go home, whether it is in this too-old body or in the child's body that doesn't quite seem to fit anymore.

He will go home, and he will know that it _is_ home, will have no pains in his head or cold on his skin or disconcerting beats that tell him all is not as his eyes say.

He can't think of any more questions to ask, so instead he hums _Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star_ , not pausing when the gold-eyed man turns to him sharply.

There is nothing the man can do to take away the image in his mind, the picture he has that must— _will—_ come true.

After these uncountable days, Right is sure of that much, at least.

XXX

Marvelous doesn't trust what he's seeing.

He has been too long away from his ship. He has been too long away from his crew—though they tell him it has been only ten Galactic days, less than two Standard weeks since he was spirited away.

He has spent too much time distrusting everything, questioning everything, waiting for the faintest hint of pain behind his eyes to tell him that the world he is in is not the real one.

He flinches from their touch even as he yearns for it.

He reaches for the _Galleon's_ wheel only to remember destroying her in a dozen different false worlds, and allows Joe to take it instead.

He needs to sleep, to heal, but the inside of his closed eyelids feels too much like the darkness before they etched their own warped version of truth onto his mind and memories, and despite Doc and Ahim's best efforts he is prowling the corridors again before an hour has elapsed.

"I give up." Doc throws his hands up in the air as Marvelous shoves past him, heading for the bridge again. "Since I am not _actually_ a doctor—"

A fact all of them know, and Marvelous can't help throwing a disbelieving glance at Don, one eyebrow arched. There's a reason he let Joe and Luka do most of the bandaging on him.

"And you are a _horrible_ patient—"

He's heard _that_ one before, from... well, pretty much all of the crew, as well as AkaRed and everyone else who has had the misfortune of sitting with him while he heals. It's probably a good thing his species has one of the better healing rates in the galaxy.

"I am _not_ going to be responsible for you hurting yourself or passing out somewhere."

Marvelous waits to see if Doc is going to continue his tirade, but he seems to have run out of steam. He is following Marvelous, though, a fact that Marvelous finds comforting. He doesn't want to be alone on the _Galleon_.

(Ah, that had been one of their cleverer dreamscapes, an empty _Galleon_ , false memories of his crew dead, and it would be so easy to rewrite all of time and space, to bring them back, and he _would_ , gods help him, he very well _might_ , but he would have died beside them first and—)

Don's arm on his shoulder is like a brand, seering against old bruises and burns, and he leans into the touch forcefully.

He is here.

He is finally home, with his crew.

(He is, isn't he? He is here, please, let him be here.)

"Marvelous." Ahim's displeasure is clear in her voice, and Marvelous turns to smile at the woman who has appeared at the other end of the corridor. "I thought we all agreed you would stay in your quarters and rest?"

"No, _you_ all agreed to that." Marvelous points at her as he brushes past, his other hand grasping hers briefly in a tight squeeze. " _I_ was busy screaming and cursing at that point because you told Joe to use the disinfectant."

"Because your shoulder was _oozing pus_." Ahim's voice now has the same exasperated tone that Doc's does.

Marvelous doesn't mind. He likes them being exasperated with him more than he likes them tip-toeing around him as they had before. "It felt like a hell-beast was gnawing on me!"

"But you will hopefully not end up _losing your arm now_." Ahim gives him her best royally disdainful glance, which is a very effective look. "A peg leg is acceptable for a pirate; a peg arm will just make you look silly."

"I was not in any danger of losing the arm. And I wouldn't do something ridiculous like have a peg arm." Marvelous thinks back on their adventures. "Not without good reason, at least."

"But you _will_ wander around mere hours after Joe and Doc basically carried you off the enemy ship where you were tortured?" Ahim manages to look down her nose at him, though he's taller than her. "Why?"

Because he doesn't want to sleep. Because he doesn't want to be separated from his crew. Because he desperately needs to know that they've picked up the trail of one of the shuttles—not just one, but the _right_ one, the one that contains Right. Because he needs to keep making sure this is real, really real. "Because I'm hungry."

Neither Ahim nor Doc manage to come up with a response in the two seconds that he gives them before turning away.

He hears them following him a moment later, muttering to each other about how incorrigible and impossible he is, and it makes him smile.

He hopes it's the first in a long line of smiles to come, but he keeps his hand on the wall of the _Galleon_ as he walks, waiting for any tell-tale incorrect shiver that will tell him this is all just a beautiful dream.


	8. Green

_Chapter Five: Green_

Don leans back in his seat, blinking until his eyes focus. The end of the feather that Mio brought them—and he is certain, after seeing the monsters that guarded the ship where Marvelous was held, that it belongs to one of them—disappears into a chamber on the side of the analyzer that he has finally coaxed into working again.

"And what does this do again?" Tokatti pokes at the machine, though he does it with the gentle, reverent hand of someone who respects what he's working with.

"Samples anything that's placed into it and uses a combination of spectrophotometetry and basic chemical reactions to determine what's in a sample." Don finds himself smiling at the jittery, energetic man.

"And once you know what's in it..." Hikari points with his kendama toward the computer that Don attached to the analyzer. "That will tell you where it's from?"

"That's the idea." Don resists the urge to fiddle with any of the connections. He's done everything he can to make the analyzer and the computer both work, given that they're salvaged bits from other, more scientifically inclined vessels. "It'll narrow down as much as possible based on the elements it finds.

"I could spend hours in here just studying everything, trying to figure out how it works." Tokatti turns in a circle, surveying Don's domain.

Don can't help a little laugh. "You're probably the most excited anyone's ever been about being here."

Tokatti blushes. "Well, I..."

Hikari claps him on the shoulder. "He likes science. And he's good at it. If he wasn't such a good guy, he could easily grow up to be a mad scientist. We make him play one sometimes, during our make-believe games."

_Make-believe games_. Don manages to keep his smile mostly in place, though it slips. How easy it is to forget that these people—these fighters, who are just as skilled as he is—are actually just children. How easy to forget that he watched them age from children into these adult bodies, to forget that the faces he is growing quite used to—quite fond of—are masks drawn out by darkness, shields used to protect innocence.

They are watching him, Tokatti and Hikari, and he knows better, by now, than to share his actual thoughts. These children have earned their place as Super Sentai members, and they will see his defensiveness of them, his hesitancy about what they have been asked to do, as censure of them, instead of horror at the situation.

He has seen a universe at war, has watched Ahim grieve and avenge a _planet_ , and still he finds new things to be horrified by.

"...Doc?" Tokatti's voice is hesitant, as though he worries about intruding on something important.

"Mmm, I'm fine." Shaking his head, Don pushes himself up from his chair, no longer wanting to be still. "This tends to be fast, not more than ten minutes, so we won't have long to wait. Then we'll have a better idea which shuttle we want to chase down."

"And then we'll get Right back." Hikari speaks with an intensity, a burning _need_ , that Don recognizes.

Has felt so strongly— _still_ feels so strongly, because though they have Marvelous again, though he is currently eating in the kitchen, entertaining Mio and Kagura and Akira with tales of his exploits, there is something... changed about him.

(How could there not be? How could he go through what he has been through—be broken down to the point where _is this real_ is the first, most pertinent question he has to ask—and not be scarred by it? Oh, how hard it had been to walk up to the wild-eyed man who was ripping himself free of his bonds without caring about harm to himself. How difficult to hold out a weapon to a man who could easily kill him, but if he didn't—if he failed to reach through the agony there and draw back the man who both stole and enhanced his life...)

"They'll be all right." Tokatti speaks into the silence that Don has again allowed to fall. "They'll both be just fine, once we have them back."

It's a child's faith that shines in the words, a belief that if one _says_ something hard enough, _means_ something strong enough, it will be enough to change the universe.

But the eyes of the men nodding are not child's eyes, not really, not anymore, and Don finds the reassurance of the child-men far more encouraging than he ever would have imagined. Grinning as he always does when the crew does something foolish—when they challenge the empire that controls the universe—Don nods. "We'll rescue Right, and get the two of them back to their old selves."

The analyzer gives an ear-splitting _bleep_ , clearly designed to summon the attention of someone prone to wandering.

They haven't gone anywhere, though, and Don can feel the two ToQgers pressing against his sides as he leans forward to read what the computer has to say.

"Well." Don blinks. "Not what I was expecting, but I'm guessing the lot of you won't have any problems with it."

"What?" Hikari frowns at the data flowing across the screen, eyes clearing scanning for the result, not finding it buried at the bottom right corner. "Where are we going?"

"Earth." Don reaches over to click open the comm channels. "Our bad guys are from Earth, so if we follow the second shuttle that broke away, we should find what we're looking for."

XXX

They find the shuttle an hour before it hits Earth's atmosphere.

They close the distance steadily, and there's no way for the fleeing enemy to shake them off. The _Galleon_ is like a wolf, calmly loping after its prey, steady and determined.

Hikari and the other ToQgers stay packed onto the bridge, watching as Joe steers the ship. Marvelous stands at his second-in-command's shoulder, arms crossed, giving comments that eventually earn an exasperated _I know_ from Joe.

He looks better than he had when they rescued him. Granted, Hikari's not sure he could look _worse_ than when they rescued him. The injuries on his face have healed to thin scars, and his clothes hide the worse injuries, the burns and gouges on his chest and back.

(And his eyes look human now—haunted, watching too closely what they do, but human. Focused in the here and now, not on shadows that none of the rest of them can see.)

Kagura begins calling out instructions as they breach the atmosphere, the shuttle now visible in its headlong dash. _Left! Right! Faster!_ If her eager suggestions annoy Joe as Marvelous' had, he doesn't say anything.

They aren't able to overtake the shuttle before it dives deep into a mountain, through a crack that they won't be able to follow through with the _Galleon_.

That's all right. So long as they have a path to follow, there is _nothing_ that will keep them from Right.

The other ToQgers follow him in his slithering, headlong dive down the ropes to stand on the dusty desert ground before the mountain. Tokatti takes up a position on one side of Hikari, Mio on the other, Kagura by Mio's side.

The Gokaigers have somehow beaten them down to the ground, and Hikari has to take a moment to stare up at the ship and down at the pirates in confusion.

Marvelous grins at him, pistol resting on his right shoulder. "Come on, kids. They've got something I want, and we're going to take it back."

Hikari and Mio share a look, then grin and fall in with the Gokaigers as they stride toward the mountain.

Hikari is just starting to worry about how they're going to get _into_ said mountain when the mountain saves him the trouble by exploding.

Picking himself up, shaking his head to try to get the ringing in his ears to stop, Hikari squints up at a giant wasp-bird robot.

" _Really?_ " Tokatti's exasperated sigh as he shoves his glasses back into place on his nose cuts through the buzz.

"That doesn't even _look good!_ " Kagura is bleeding from a cut on her cheek as she stands up, pointing a hand that is shaking with what he _thinks_ is fury at the mecha. "It's a fine design for the little monsters, but something big needs more _color_ , needs more—"

Ahim grabs Kagura, hauling her to the side as some kind of laser weapon stabs the ground where she had been standing.

As if summoned by Kagura's outburst, a horde of wasp-birds bubbles out of the mountain and around the feet of the robot.

"All right, you mangy dogs!" Marvelous' voice carries easily over the buzzing, keening sound of the bird-men. He is bleeding again from somewhere on his scalp, has blood trickling down his right arm, and there is an almost-manic glint in his eyes as he faces down the hoard, Mobirates in one hand, Gokaiger key in the other. "Let's show them how we do this!"

It isn't quite like when the Gokaigers faced down the Zangyack leader. There is more fury in the way Marvelous snaps out his transformation, a fury that seems to crackle down through the rest of the Gokaigers.

It is similar enough, though, for Hikari to feel a heady rush of excitement, a sense that he is part of something _huge_ , something earth-changing, and he is screaming as he slams his train into place and feels his own transformation rush over him.

The monsters don't stand a chance.

The Gokaigers switch weapons almost as soon as they have them in hand, Joe tossing his gun to Ahim who tosses him a sword in return.

Once he saw that, he really should have expected Tokatti to want to show off what their own suits can do.

Oh, well. He likes Trigger as much as he does Ax.

Or Claw. There's something satisfying about slicing through the monsters that have helped keep Right hostage.

Or _Hammer_ , and he casts a confused glance at Mio, trying to decide if she's willingly participating in the line-changing or has just gotten caught up in it like he has.

"You can change colors!" Doc's voice is excited as he runs past, three wasp-birds chasing him.

"I didn't know anyone on other teams could." Ahim's voice is cool and collected, her tone never changing as she shoots monster after monster, a wall of corpses beginning to form in a meter's radius around her.

"Line-changing!" Tokatti is far too cheerful as he scurries by, claws slicing through a group of wasps that were attempting to pin down Joe. "It's fantastic!"

And then there are no more monsters.

Just a giant wasp-robot, and Hikari cranes his neck as he looks up at the golden and black creation.

"Akira, Gai, get into the building and start searching." Marvelous' sword rests on his left shoulder as he stares up at the robot, too. "The rest of us... let's get into something a bit more suited to matching size."

Hikari doesn't argue, though a part of him wants to. They have to find Right, quickly. Leaving something that can bring the mountain down on top of them standing here, though, isn't an option.

And it worries him, a bit, the fact that the robot hasn't moved. What is it waiting for? What is the pilot _doing_?

It moves when ToQ-Oh and Gokai-Oh confront it, though. It attacks with a viciousness that Hikari hadn't expected, a series of intense slashes with the sword it carries and fierce jabs with the right hand that are achingly, hauntingly familiar.

" _Wait!_ " Hikari screams the word, bringing both the Gokai-Oh and his own team-mates up short. "Wait, everyone! Look at the way it's fighting. Look at the way it's _standing_."

He knows when the others catch on, can hear it in the half-sob Kagura gives, in Mio's frustrated growl, in Tokatti's whimper.

He says it anyway, because only one of the Gokaigers has ever met the man they're looking for.

"The pilot of that mech... it's Right."


	9. In Darkness Tinged Sage

_In Darkness Stained Sage_

The dark trains come out of nowhere, but Right knows who is on them.

Zett.

The Emperor of Darkness, the lord of pain and grief and loss, the one who stole his home and poisoned his soul and has the nerve to still look at him with longing and a soft reprise of _kira, kira_.

(No, that's not right, that's not how he feels, not really. Maybe sometimes, when he is hurt and he misses his home, but usually the problem is that he pities Zett as much as he hates him and something isn't right here.)

There isn't time to think, because the monsters are attacking. Zett and the twisted Queen that he made of Grita are going to kill him—have done something to the rest of the ToQgers, made them go away, stripped Right of all the support that he once had.

(Except that isn't right, either, because he walked away, yes, to try to protect them, but they always followed him, always saved him, because friends protect _each other_ and—)

And his head _hurts_ , aches so deeply it feels like it might split in two, but the pain just seems to make the darkness that is lapping through him—the sorrow, the frustration, the despair, the _rage—_ cut deeper.

He will win this time.

He will defeat the darkness.

He will be the light.

"Not like that, you won't be."

He tries to turn to look at the voice—Zett's voice, too close, right by him, not in the train-robot that he is facing—but he can't seem to move, for some reason. Can only stare ahead, at the enemies that he must fight, and he pauses for a moment, confused.

"That's it. Pull away from me and reach for them." A hand on his shoulder, a brush of burning-cold fingers through his hair, and Right shivers as Zett's voice drives splinters of agony up through his eyes.

His heart is beating too quickly, every pulse sending adrenaline through him that screams he must _move, fight, win_.

"But you _know_ how you win the fight against me, and it's not like this." Another brush of cold fingers through his hair. "How did you defeat me, Right?"

_Defeat_ Zett? But he _hasn't_ , Zett is out there, Zett is—

"Was it by doing this—by embracing the darkness he's flinging you into?" A hand on his chest, and Right barely chokes back a cry as he tries to arch away from the invisible monster that is touching his body. "What happened when you embraced the darkness, Right? Did it make me happy? Did it make _you_ happy?"

"Don't _care_ about making you happy." He pants out the words through trembling lips, continuing to fight against the mecha that _must_ hold Zett's body.

"You _broke_ my body, Right." The words are the softest caressing whisper. "And I'll give you a hint how. It wasn't by embracing the darkness. That just damned us both."

_Both_ of them? What is Zett talking about?

"He's trying to give you to darkness, but that's not where you belong. Not then, not now, not ever." Zett's voice becomes deeper, more resonant with each word. "So I'll give you the best clue I can, Right. _He_ sent you to me, to the darkness; so where am I trying to send you, little star?"

The _song_ , in Zett's voice but with layers that are not Zett's, layers that are formed by children's voices and by the voices of the adults they will become, and Right screams as he fights his way along the river of light that it creates.

_Twinkle, twinkle, little star._

"Never forget who you are."

Right may have imagined the whispered words—as he may have imagined the whole conversation, because there is no way that Zett would help him, no way—but he knows he isn't imagining the other's voices as he screams his way back to reality.

They are here.

Tokatti and Mio and Hikari and Kagura are _here_ , just on the other side of the metallic beast that is holding him prisoner, using him as a brain for combat.

But he can't reach them.

He can't free himself, his arms and legs strapped firmly down.

He can't even _stop_ the monster, a calculated, cold, inhuman voice saying that automatic controls will take over in four, three, two, one.

All he can do is call their names, and hope that they will understand all that he wants to say.

XXX

"We _will_ get him _back!_ " Marvelous howls out the words.

None of his crew disagrees with him, though he can hear their hesitancy in their silence, their certainty that he isn't thinking clearly.

And he _isn't_ thinking clearly, he will give them that. He has not been thinking clearly for over two weeks, and he can feel the weakness of anemia and repeated head trauma catching up to him, and he still isn't even sure this is _real_ , but he's not going to let that stop him.

"He's _alive_ and he's _here_ and they're _not_ using him as a weapon against us." Marvelous draws a deep breath, straightening, remembering the boy-man who huddled next to him in their timeless, miserable prison cell. "We're going to get him back. We're going to wrench him free of that contraption, and we're going to reunite him with his team, and they'll be just as happy and ecstatic as the lot of you were when I get back. More, possibly—I'm not sure he annoys them as much as I sometimes annoy you."

Brief sounds of amusement, and Marvelous can feel the tension relaxing in his shoulders as he keeps the Gokai-Oh away from the enemy mecha, dancing it back out of range again and again.

"And we'll take them home. We'll take them back to their families, and we'll give them back their children's bodies—don't say anything, Doc, don't even _think_ it, this is what's going to _happen_ , I saw him age up and I'm going to see him age back _down_." Any argument that Don was going to give—that any of them were going to give—dies away.

"And then we're going to go back out into the stars, and you're going to spoil the _hell_ out of me, and it's going to be _wonderful_." Marvelous spins the wheel, sending the Gokai-Oh into a brief cavort to avoid a strafe of missile fire. "I can _see_ it."

It's what Right said, over and over. _I can_ see _it._ Their crews coming to get them. The two of them going home. Everything being _all right_ again, in the end, even if they are left with scars.

"I can _see_ it." And he _can_ , clear as crystal, but his voice still wavers just the tiniest fraction. "Can't the rest of you?"

For one terrified moment he doesn't think they will answer.

He thinks they will tell him _no_ , if not in words then in silence.

(He thinks he will feel it, the cold shiver of pain that tells him this isn't real, that this has just been an elaborate hoax.)

"I can see it." Ahim's voice is utter certainty.

"Me, too." Doc's wavers, but it is the waver of devotion, of desire.

"More poetic than I would have described it, but a good enough picture of what's to come." Luka turns to him, hip cocked, hand on hip, and he knows the smile that goes with that stance so well it almost hurts.

"I see it." Low and quiet, Joe's near-silent affirmation seals their unanymity.

And the air in front of Marvelous shimmers, a key that he has never seen before taking shape.

A key that is a shimmering rainbow color, red blending into blue into yellow into green into pink into orange, and Marvelous snatches it out of the air with a grin.

Gai is going to be so jealous that he missed this part.

The ToQgers' mech shimmers, becomes as transparent as a rainbow, and Marvelous knows what he is supposed to do.

Spinning the wheel, he has Gokai-Oh grab ToQ-Oh by the shoulder and sends it head-first into the enemy robot.

The robot explodes, just as he expected.

And when the dust of the explosion clears, there are five people huddled on the ground—four touching, hugging, holding the fifth.

They've brought Right home.

They're one step closer to making what he saw true.

Sagging back, finding his vision blurring as he studies Right—now right where he belongs, amidst his team, the people who are his crew as surely as the Gokaigers are Marvelous'—Marvelous hopes he will be able to stay conscious to see the rest of his vision come true.

XXX

For a few seconds all Right can do is curl into the hands that are holding him, wrap his battered thoughts in the excited voices of his friends that surround him like rushing water, and cry.

He's home.

He's back with his people.

He was wrenched from the belly of an exploding robot by hands that were only semi-solid, but right now he doesn't _care_.

He's home.

(He believes it, though a part of him says he shouldn't. He believes it because that's who he _is_ , the man who makes things real by willing them to be, by trusting in these people who are now holding him, and he will not give that up.)

"Right." Mio's voice breaks through the rest, certain as her fingers on her chin. "Right, are you hurt?"

In ways that he doesn't have the words to articulate, but a quick inventory of his physical body—bruised around the wrists and ankles, sore at his temples where the machine was attached, _hungry_ , so very hungry for so many days—tells him nothing too serious is wrong. Choking off the sobs, swiping at his face to wipe away the tears, Right shakes his head. "I'm okay. I'm—"

Hugged, by four of his five team-mates, and Right's attempt to push himself to his feet is broken off as Kagura begins crying onto his shoulder and Hikari's fist buries itself in his shirt and Tokatti's hand holding his and Mio continuing to hold his head as she stares at him doubtfully.

Oh, well. He really doesn't feel like getting up anyway. If he can just stay here—

" _I will kill you all!_ "

The voice is a twisted parody of the one that Right has hated for days—too sibilant, far more inhuman, but he recognizes it all the same.

He doesn't recognize the creature—beautiful, a gold-and-black bird built on utterly alien proportions—that slides in a frantic frenzy down the face of the mountain.

"If I can't have it, I'll kill you all!"

His team is on their feet before Right can think of words. Holding up his hands, he allows them to haul him silently to his feet.

By the time he is vertical, the Gokaigers are standing next to them. Marvelous gives him a nod—quick, respectful, _understanding—_ and then turns his eyes to the creature. "Shall we finish this?"

Right nods. "Let's do this."

As both teams call out their transformations in synch, Right thinks that maybe, just maybe, this whole ordeal has been worth it.


	10. Gold

_Chapter Six: Gold_

Akira leads the way into the base, feeling the edges of Zaram's form pressing painfully against the human shape that he prefers.

Hunting is easier as a Shadow, but he will do it in this form—as a ToQger, as a semblance of a man.

As Nijino Akira, the man that Right helped to make, and his jaw clenches tight as he imagines all that this _creature_ has done to Right.

"You really want to protect them, don't you?"

Akira glances back at the Gokaiger, who is currently dispatching one of the monsters that their enemy is using a cannon fodder. "Yes."

"I mean, I know it's an obvious thing to say, they're your team-mates and all, but I tend to babble when I'm excited and teaming up with another team always makes me excited and it was just something I noticed, you know?" Gai's stream of chatter doesn't interfere with his fighting at all, and Akira is impressed that the human can breathe well enough to manage both. "The way you watch out for them. Take care of them."

"They're my team. They're my friends." Akira frowns, thinking back on the way he has heard the pirates talk over the last few days as he runs his sword through one of the wasps. "They're my _crew_."

"Ahah, Marvelous is starting to rub off on all of us if you guys've picked that one up." Gai falls in at his side as the last of the wasps from this wave collapses to the ground with a sad little _bzz_. "You're... all right with them being what they are?"

Akira blinks as he once more leads the way forward. "They are themselves."

"I mean them being kids." Gai waves his hand in a circular motion. "It upsets Ahim and Doc, a bit. I'm not sure Luka and Joe really know what being a kid's _supposed_ to mean, so they pretty much accept it. Me, I just... think that if they're a Sentai, it's our job to support and help them."

"I am a Shadow." It doesn't hurt as much as it did once, acknowledging where he came from. Part of it is his own journey, the acceptance of him that the others have shown; part of it has been this last week, talking to people who are no less alien to humanity than he is, even if they blend in more readily. "We... don't really have childhoods, not like you think of them. Few of us even have parents. Grita was rather special in that regard."

"You respect her."

It's not a question, though there's a hint of questing curiosity behind the statement, Gai offering to hear his story if he wants to tell it.

And he might, one day, but not here. "She's done what I can't. She's bringing light into the darkness, rather than bringing the darkness into the light. She's trying to... fix Zett, something I never would have thought to do."

"You've got a different role to play." Gai is watching something up near the ceiling, while Akira continues to hunt by scent and sound. "Nothing wrong with needing the light, and I'm glad that the other ToQgers have you to look after them."

"I owe them." Peering around a corner, Akira stalks forward. "And I... care about them."

"Honor and friendship and loyalty." Gai is grinning ear to ear as he bounds ahead. "Can't think of a better foundation for a relationship or a Sentai."

Akira quickens his pace to keep up with the Gokaiger. He wonders if this man and Utsusemimaru have had a chance to talk about honor, since both of them seem quite fond of the foreign concept. "You... know where we're going?"

"Good idea." Gai points up, at the ceiling. "Wires are all converging in one direction—it's got to be the command center, and I can't imagine our man would retreat anywhere else."

"Oh." Staring up where Gai points, Akira nods.

They find the command center after fighting their way through one last, desperate, seemingly only half-completed group of wasps. Akira, human skin feeling both wonderful and too restrictive as his rage and desire for vengeance pull on the Shadow core still inside him, holds up one hand to keep Gai back. "Let me do this. This is _my_ place to—"

" _Ours_." Gai's voice is a sharp whip-crack of certainty, of claiming.

Pausing, Akira studies the man for a moment before nodding. Marvelous will bear scars from this as surely as Right will. "This is _our_ place to fight."

They transform together, side by side, and Akira kicks down the steel door.

" _No_." The man who stands before them is a disappointment. He has golden eyes that flash like lightning, but otherwise he looks entirely human, and he backs away from them, dropping a contraption as he does. "No, this isn't what's supposed to happen!"

"What, we're not supposed to fight back?" Gai sidles forward and to the right, while Akira sidles left. "We're not supposed to come after our own? If you know _anything_ about being a Super Sentai member, you should've expected this."

"I just want the Treasure." The man's voice changes as he watches them, the muscles in his arms beginning to stand out, a hint of power and darkness filling the air, and Akira remembers that not all monsters wear their true form so obviously. (That _he_ can hide his darkness under a human skin, but never truly erase it.) "I want to _fix_ this, to undo it!"

"Undo what?" Gai has his spear aimed at the man, but he doesn't use it, and Akira finds himself following the Gokaiger's lead.

"What they _did to me_." The man turns to Gai, and there is a shiver in the air above his head, a hint of golden feathers. "You and the rest of those pirates—beheading the Zangyack Empire, chasing down the remnants, leaving those of us who worked with them nowhere to _go_. Leaving us trapped as _monsters_."

"No." Akira steps forward, crowding against the pathetic once-human who has hurt his friends over such a petty, silly thing. "They saved this world and I'm sure they've saved others."

"They left me a _monster_." The human facade slips, and something that could be a Shadow is left in its place, arms spread, golden feathers gleaming.

"No." Taking another step forward, Akira shakes his head. " _You_ made yourself a monster, when you attacked Marvelous and Right. And we're going to make sure you don't ever get a chance to do it again."

The creature opens its mouth to speak, but Akira doesn't want to listen anymore.

He knows what it's like to be a monster, more than this person—this once-human—ever could. He has known what it's like to be burned by the sun simply for existing. He has known what it's like to bring pain, and to regret that pain; known what it is to despise one's form, and one's name, and to seek desperately for something more.

That is not what this man is doing.

This man, bitter that he lost, that he paid in flesh for power that he has not been given, reaches out to inflict pain on others.

And Akira will not let that continue.

XXX

The creature is stronger than it looks, and Gai finds that he and Akira are hard-pressed to do any damage to it.

They don't _take_ much damage, either, thankfully, but they can't _destroy_ it, and before Gai can coordinate himself with Akira well enough the beast is out the door and away.

Running toward another escape vehicle?

_That's_ not going to happen.

It's easy enough to explode the small plane before the creature can board it, though, one well-placed shot in the fuel tank causing a very dramatic explosion.

It does not, unfortunately, result in roast monster, and they continue to chase the beast out into open daylight.

" _I will kill you all!_ " The bird squawks out the threat as it practically rolls down the mountain, and Gai takes a moment to catch his breath as he watches it twist and skitter.

Takes a moment to watch his team—complete again, just as they should be—and Right's team, also complete and beautiful with Right at the center—transform.

"They saved him." Akira breathes out the words, and there is a definite hint of tears in his voice, though Gai can't see his expression through his helmet.

"Knew they would." Gai smiles as he claps his new friend—how much he _loves_ this part, getting to come home and meet new friends, new heroes—on the shoulder. "Shall we join them for this last little bit of clean-up?"

Akira nods, and the two of them make a more graceful descent down the broken cliff-face.

Their teams surround the monster, keeping it from escaping, inflicting minor damage on it but never quite managing to bring it down.

Part of it is the way their teams are fighting. Marvelous is flagging—Gai can see that from the moment the fight starts, see the way the pirate will pause and lean on his sword or allow one of the others to take the lead. The ToQgers are concentrating their strength on defending Right, each of them keeping him close.

They need something quick, something to put an end to this.

They need to let Right or Marvelous end this, because they are the ones who have been most hurt by this man and his twisted quest.

"Right!" Gai slams his spear into the side of the bird, causing it to stagger back. "Your final attack—do it!"

"We already _tried_ , it won't _die_." There's a note of near-hysteria to Right's voice, a child's fear and disbelief that cuts straight into Gai's heart.

"But have you tried with the Gokaiger's power?"

Hikari is at Right's side, not quite touching him but clearly defending him. " _What_ Gokaiger power? We need a _train_ to—"

"I'm sure it's out there!" Gai sweeps his spear into a low thrust, driving the bird back, trying to keep it away from both Marvelous and Right. Akira slams a fist into the back of the bird's head, bringing it down to the ground. "Do it! Imagine it!"

"What is it that we want, Right?" Marvelous' words are panted, and if he leans any more heavily on his sword he's going to fall over, but Gai thinks from his tone that he's smiling.

"To protect the world. To keep her people safe— _our_ people safe." Right answers slowly. "And we won't be—no Sentai will be safe so long as he's alive."

Marvelous collapses to his knees, though he manages to make it look almost-graceful. "And what do we do if we want something?"

Right straightens, and there is _definitely_ a grin in his voice as he answers. "We take it."

Gai is never entirely certain where the train comes from—if it breaks off of the _Galleon_ , if it appears from one of the magical trains that carry the ToQgers suits.

(He knows where it _ultimately_ comes from, though. It comes from the same place as the keys and the Powers and the Greatest Treasure, from the living heart of the planet that he loves, a planet that gives her people the power to protect themselves and those they love.)

Right holds the gun, though Marvelous steadies it, leaning against Right's legs, the bazooka balanced on his shoulder.

The others all lend support, hands on shoulders, sides, backs.

And in a flash of gold and a waterfall of shadows, Gokai Ressha obliterates their enemy.


	11. In Darkness, Sparks of Light

_In Darkness, Sparks of Light_

"We did it." Right collapses next to Marvelous, allowing his transformation to fall away.

The pirate also changes into his usual outfit—a much more impressive look than Right's own, but Right doesn't mind. "We did it."

"We're home." Right smiles up at his team.

They smile back at him, but there's a tension to their smiles that hadn't been there before, and Right finds himself looking down at his own hands.

Oh.

Yeah.

"Ah, right, one last thing to do." Marvelous places a hand on Right's shoulder, using Right to haul himself back to his feet.

"Gokaigers!" Before the pirate captain can continue, an unfamiliar voice breaks in, and Right turns to see three people in color-coded leather outfits walking toward them.

"Hiromu! Ryuji! Yoko!" Gai practically explodes across the sand, dashing first toward the new-comers and then back to their huddle of tired but victorious teams. "ToQgers, these are the Go-Busters."

Ryuji, who appears to be the oldest, smiles at them. "As soon as we saw the _Galleon_ break atmosphere, we started rounding up the troops. Seems like we missed the fun, though."

" _TooooQgerrrs!_ "

Looking past the Go-Busters, Right can't help but grin as he sees the Kyoryugers coming toward them, Utsusemimaru leading the group and waving as he calls.

Hiromu points over his shoulder with a thumb. "They would be part of the cavalry, too. Seems they already know the ToQgers, so we briefed each other on our friends."

_Friends_.

_So_ many friends, and all sorrow over whether or not they will be able to return home is pushed aside as the four teams meet each other.

Marvelous, still slightly unsteady on his feet when one of his crew isn't by his side surreptitiously giving him a hand, brings the greetings to a close by turning to Right. "As I was saying, though, one more thing we need to do before we can all go home—get you all back into your normal bodies."

Right stares down at his too-old, too-familiar form. "How?"

"Same way you got into these. You saw it, right? You imagined what you needed, the power you needed to be the heroes that your world had to have—that _I_ had to have, for a little bit." Marvelous' dark eyes are sharp as they study Right, head to foot. "But I remember what you looked like. I remember a boy with too-old eyes and kind hands, and I'm going to take him _home_."

Marvelous reaches up, his hand coming to rest on Right's head—as he reached up that first time, and there is blood, again, staining the inside of the pirate's wrist, blood at Right's eye level.

But it is dried blood, now, the marks of old injuries rather than the oozing of current pain, and Right stares at it, wills the miracle, wills Marvelous to _see_...

Daigo's hand falls atop Marvelous'. "You guys need to be able to go home, now your fight's over. I've seen you as a little soldier and a big soldier; now I want to see you as you are."

Hiromu's hand is a third weight. "We've had enough children give up their childhoods for our planet. If we can give you yours back..."

Glancing left and right, Right sees that the others have all collected small groups in front of them, as well—Tokatti with Joe and Ryuji and Nossan; Mio with Luka and Yoko and Ian; Hikari with Doc and Akira and Souji; Kagura with Ahim and Gai and Ami.

And then he _feels_ it—something he has felt before, something he was afraid, in those few seconds he had time to be afraid of anything else, he would never feel again. A peeling away of the darkness, an easing back of the tension that forces him to fit into this body that will-be-but-isn't his. A _cleansing_ , though not an erasing, and when he blinks the stars away from his eyes he is looking very far up into Marvelous' face as the pirate grins and ruffles his hair.

" _There_ we go." Marvelous sighs. "Now, how about we go get something to eat? I'm _starving_ and I'm sure Right is, too."

Giving a grin of his own, Right nods before launching himself at his friends.

They're going home.

They've saved the world, and they've made new friends, and they're going to get _food_ , and then they're going _home_.

Overall, everything considered, it hasn't been such a bad day, after all.


End file.
